Barn Birds ???

A walk around the Little Linford Wood area today.
Very few butterflies around which was I was primarily looking for but did see some birds that were seemingly not in their correct habitat.

Tree Sparrows are rare enough these days but this colony choose to nest in an old derelict barn.

 

Another bird that seemed to like a barn was this Red-legged Partridge. Not nesting but using it for a lookout post.                                                                                                                   

 

 

Ragged Robin is one of my favourite flowers and there are plenty here

 

 

Mallorca Wildlife

Just a few pics of a few non-birdy things from the Mallorca trip.

Hermans Tortoise

Red-eared Terrapin

 

European Pond Turtle

 

Moorish Gecko

 

Iberian Green Flog

 

Iberian Speckled Wood

 

Clouded Yellow

 

Painted Lady

Locust

 

All the Wild Leek flower spikes were covered in these snails, a bizarre sight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Mallorca Birding. Part three

A selection of some of the smaller passerines...

Serin

 

 

female Sardinian Warbler

Spanish Yellow Wagtail

 

Nightingale

Woodchat Shrike

Stonechat

Bee-eater

Fan-tailed Warbler

Corn Bunting

 

 

Balearic Spotted Flycatcher

 

 

 

 

 

More Mallorca Birding. Part two

Waders seen on the trip included...



Black-winged Stilt



Stone Curlew



Little-ringed Plover



Kentish Plover



Kentish Plover chick (top centre)                                                                                                                                                                                   
 

Cormorant and Shag were the only seabirds observed on this trip....







Mediterranean race Shag
 

 

I saw a good variety of Raptors but they were usually not close enough to photograph....                      

 

Osprey (with fish)

Eleanora's Falcon

                      



More Mallorca Birding part one...

We were back in Mallorca for our 2 week holiday at the start of May. Here's a few pics from there.

First a few Herons...



Cattle Egret



Squacco Heron



Night Heron



Little Egret

Purple Heron



Great White Egret

a few waterbirds...


Purple Swamphen



Red-knobbed Coot



Red-crested Pochard



Marbled Duck

 

A few bits from Norfolk

I had a much more successful trip to Norfolk last week than my last visit in December.
With lots of good birds seen including Purple Sandpiper, Spoonbill, a smashing male Hen Harrier, several Lapland Buntings and half a dozen Snow Buntings.
 I also encountered lots of the more common coastal birds that you rarely get in Buckinghamshire including Fulmars, Red-breasted Mergansers, Guillemot and at least 50 Red-throated Divers on the sea at Cley.

one of the cheeky Turnstones at Sheringham

Purple Sandpiper at Sheringham

another Sheringham Turnstone (they follow you around)

Lapland Buntings at Blakeney

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Town Owl

Having done a usual wander around Gayhurst Quarry, where I had been pleased to find my first returning Oystercatcher of the year and three Egyptian Geese that had been absent for the whole shooting season, I decided to cut across the Bury Field on my way back.
 This much dog-walked Common Land usually holds a few Skylarks and Meadow Pipits and when the pools are flooded a few Snipe. Occasionally there will be Stonechats and sometimes a hunting Barn Owl.
 So it was somewhat of a surprise when a large bird flushed out of one of the bushes in the middle of the common .... Short-eared Owl !!

What a marvellous find and only a couple of hundred yards from Newport Pagnell Town Centre.

 

Ravensthorpe Ressie

I finally found a window to visit Ravensthorpe Reservoir yesterday morning.
There were reports that Otters could be seen from the causeway. I'm a bit of a sucker for these animals so I just had to go. Reports suggested that there had been as many as five but unfortunately one had been run over on the causeway a few days back.
 I arrived about 8 o'clock to be told by the two other guys there that there had been 2 on show about an hour before but they hadn't been seen since.
 That meant all I could do was stand and wait.
Not that this was a problem as it was a reasonable day and there were other things to look at, like the pair of Smew that kept drifting in towards the causeway but then got spooked out into the middle of the small side of the reservoir.

There was also a nice Great White Egret that has made the reservoir its home this winter.

One of the other guys decided to call it a day and the other was just leaving when I noticed some movement in the water on the far side as not one but two Otters swam across to some bushes on the other side. I called him back just in time to see them disappear into the branches but then remarkably another two appeared and followed the same course across the water, one of which scent marked each and every metal post sticking out of the water on its way across. Unfortunately no photos as they were quite a way off and my natural reaction is to watch whats happening rather than reach for the camera.

 A great morning and still back in time for breakfast.