WWT Sightings and Garden Latest

Saturday 23rd - Sunday 24th March 2013
Yes it's the Hawfinch again
The bitterly cold weather continues but at least some of the bird arrivals remind me that it is spring. A trip to WWT Slimbridge this morning provided year ticks for Little Ringed Plover, with two on the Holden scrape, and an adult Spoonbill, feeding on the Tack Piece. A Common Scoter was distant on the river, one of two seen this morning, while 14 White-fronted Geese were on The Dumbles, and a Water Rail was showing well at Willow Hide. A drake Garganey seen briefly on the Top New Piece, however, eluded me.
Spoonbill
Water Rail
In the garden, the male Hawfinch continues to visit, and I saw four, including at least two males, perched in trees beyond the bottom of my garden yesterday morning. These trees are at the edge of Dimore playing field. The general finch-feast continues in the garden, and a female Blackcap has also been seen recently feeding on the Mahonia flowers. Three Ravens flew over the garden heading east early this afternoon.
Female Blackcap - drinking nectar from Mahonia flowers
A walk around the Oxenhall area yesterday to see the Wild Daffodils produced a Crossbill over Greenaways Wood, and a Marsh Tit ar Shaw Common nearby, where a pair of displaying Ravens were also seen. It was unusual to see the Daffodils surrounded by the snow, still covering the ground in the area north of Newent, although they are mostly still in bud - I would expect them to be in full flower by this date in March.
Wild Daffodils and snow, GWT Betty Dawes Wood nr. Oxenhall

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gran Canaria

Image
Saturday 1st - Saturday 8th October 2016 Hoopoe - Maspalomas A week in the hot sunshine of Gran Canaria at the start of October produced some good birds despite this island not getting much representation in the available range of published bird guides. This isn't surprising since it doesn't hold any populations of the endemic Canary pigeon species which can be found on Tenerife and La Gomera, and Blue Chaffich is much easier to find on Tenerife; next to impossible on Gran Canaria.  Based in Maspalomas at the southern tip of the island, my birding was incidental, or confined to the occasional short solo exploration on foot, in between simply being on holiday. A brackish lagoon, La Charca, stretches behind the beach at Maspalomas, cut off the sea by the beach, and with the dunes along one side. La Charca was always interesting to visit and turned up some good birds. The highlights included (no particular order): Canary Island Chiffchaff - common and vocal virtually ever...
Read more

Todd's Canada Goose

Image
Saturday 16th January 2010 The Canada Goose showing characteristics of the race Branta canadensis interior , commonly known as Todd's Canada Goose , was in the Rushy Pen at Slimbridge WWT this morning (photos in poor light above and below) , before flying off with other Canada's at 9:40am. This is a very interesting bird, showing several features which together set it apart from its feral counterparts. My observations of the differences are: it is slightly smaller with a more slender neck; shorter bill; narrower white cheek patch; the black on the chin is linked to the black of the neck; at the bottom of the neck at the back, the black joins the brown of the mantle, with no white in between; the pale fringing on the scapulars etc. is much less distinct; the tertials are more contrastingly paler, giving the effect of a pale wing panel; it has a pale eye-ring; and if these features don't help - it has a limp! Other sightings this morning included: Sharpness Docks A female/imm...
Read more

Storks, Spoonbills, Orchids and Oversley Wood

Image
Friday 15th June - Friday 6th July 2018 White Stork, Zwin Nature Park, Belgium I'll start off with some photos of White Storks taken on my recent holiday in Belgium and the Netherlands. Based in Bruges, we encountered Storks nesting near the city in the pretty small town of Damme, and at Zwin Nature Park in Belgium, and also over the border in the dutch town of Sluis. Sluis is a picturesque town, and the Storks we saw here were clearly very used to humans. White Stork, Sluis, Netherlands Zwin Nest with young, Zwin Stork nest in Damme This nest in Damme was on the historic St John's Hospital Museum, currently being renovated I didn't see a Spoonbill during the whole of 2017, and hadn't seen one in 2018 until arriving at Zwin Nature Park and seeing one in flight over the centre. This was probably one of two I saw together from the main hide. This is a fantastic reserve with great facilities. Situated in the north-east corner of Belgium, j...
Read more