TIGER MADNESS !!

I love tigers......

A friend sent me this youtube link today, check it out… it made my jaw hit the floor !!

I’ve been lucky enough to see tiger in India before, but they didn’t behave like this……

Click here – Tiger watching from elephants

Funny looking canada goose.....

Well as mentioned in my last post I saw a canada goose at Newton yesterday.....

It was kind of a bit odd looking to my eye, it certainly wasn't one of those small canada geese (richardsons and the like)... but it wasn't one of those honking great long necked things you see in the park either.... kinda in between.... Pics below...


This bird appeared short necked, fairly small headed with a bill that wasn't really small, but it didn't look large like you see on many feral canadas either.

I toyed with the idea it may be either a small feral canada or one of those "lesser" canada geese of the form parvipes.......

Now...... I know absolutely naff all about races of geese.... so I sent the pics to a well respected canada goose expert for an opinion....

The answer came back that this looks like a feral canada.... despite the short looking neck and stuff, it still appears to have a bulky body (which parvipes wouldn't show apparently). The feral "greater" canada goose in the UK can be pretty variable, and they're not all honking great long necked big billed things....

So there you have it.... its February and I'm so bored I've started looking at feral canada geese !!

Bored ??..........This is actually quite an interesting bird...... Honest !!

The great thing about birding is that it doesn't matter what your level of experience is, there's always something more to learn !! I've been birding for many years and I'm still learning all the time.... and its great that there are more experienced people out there who are willing to help and pass on there knowledge....

Low Newton & Newton Pool, 23rd Feb 2008

First stop the flood pool..... once again this place was alive with activity.....

The gulls have now found this pool and seem to use it as bathing and pre-roost area before they settle on the sea in the evening..... Mainly small gulls, black-heads and commons, but hundreds of them !! I spent 30 minutes sifting through these but nothing out of the ordinary to report unfortunately...

Gulls at Newton Flood....

Around the edge of the pool were about 12 redshank, a curlew and the usual knot....

The usual.....

Curlew

Also on the pool were a good number of teal, a few mallard, 5 gadwall, 2 wigeon and a canada goose....

Teal....

Gadwall....

Next I headed off to the hide. A group of diving ducks here consisted of 12 goldeneye, 4 tufted ducks and a pochard.... some of the male goldeneye were throwing their heads back..... but the females looked distinctly unimpressed !! There were more teal and a couple of mallards too, but little else......

A ramble through the dunes behind the hide produced one of my favourites.... a common bird here but I always enjoy seeing them.....

A favourite Newton bird.....

Around in Newton Haven there were 2 red throated divers, 10 goldeneye and at least 3 small groups of displaying eiders.....

A smart looking drake eider....

A gentle looking female !!

I finished off the afternoon by spending an hour at Low Newton where a feeding frenzy of waders and gulls provided a real spectacle..... It seems that if you catch the tide just right here both gulls and waders go bezerk feeding on rafts of seaweed...

Feeding frenzy....

How many species of wader are on this picture... look hard !!

Just offshore thousands of small gulls were loafing.... again I spent about 40 minutes scanning through every bird for that med, little or ross's gull !! No joy..... just one adult LBBG..... I always enjoy looking at gulls tho....

Finally..... I always seem to spend my bloggin life ranting about something..... I've come to the conclusion that I really am an intolerant old git....

Remember my last post where I was talking about stupid ramblers disturbing birds ? Well......I was watching the gulls and waders on the shore at Low Newton when this happened.....

Ramblers.....

The direction they are walking in is a dead end.... its the end of the beach and nothing ahead of them but sea and rocks..... but they continued walking right up to the feeding waders !!

So my initial instinctive reaction was... FFS !! What the........ !!

But then I watched..... these people were getting up close to the waders and really enjoying them, even taking photo's.... yes they did flush them a couple of times and this always annoys me.... but they were just getting close to the birds and tuning into nature.... who can argue with that ? Their methods may be a little misguided, but their interest and appreciation of these birds is a great thing and shouldn't be knocked......

Blimey.........I think I'm going soft in my old age !!

Long Nanny, 16th Feb 2008

Last week it was singing skylarks....... this week it was these.....

Spring is here.... well..... no it isn't really !!

On that lovely sunny afternoon yesterday I was thinking "not long now till we see the first wheatears...." ..... who am I kidding.... I woke up this morning....everything was white and it was brass monkeys out there !!.....I bet it'll still be months till I get a flippin wheatear at Newton Point.....

I'm getting REALLY BORED of the winter now... not a lot happening at Newton... roll on the spring !!

So today I decided to head out to the Long Nanny and see if I could nail that mythical lapland bunting I dream of... I've read a few of the old bird reports recently and they have been reported here in Feb apparently.... yeah, just not this Feb tho....

As I scanned the Newton Links fields for the elusive (well non existent) lap bunt.... I dreamt of finding a richards pipit here.... another bird which seems to have the odd wintering record in the UK the last few years ....... Mmmmmmm......... the fields here look perfect for a richards pipit......

Yep.... February is the month for dreaming, its just a bit shit really..... absolutely naff all new to see, so you're not left with much choice but to let your mind ramble off !!

I walked towards the Nanny, scanning the fields as I went, and managed to locate 26 twite and 2 snow buntings..... and not a lot else...... well.... a song thrush and a stonechat !!

On the beach there was a large gathering of gulls...... BRILLIANT I LOVE GULLS !!

.......Aren't gulls.... BRILLIANT !!

A nice common gull.....

Yep the one thing that can keep me happy in Feb is a flock of gulls.... I spent about an hour scanning these gulls...... well there was nowt else to do was there !! Despite my efforts I couldn't find anything unusual... not even a med.... still nice birds tho.... and it was good to have a good look at the variation in 1st winter common gull plumages....

I decided to get some photos and the birds were fairly approachable..... So there I am on the beach with my scope and camera kit on a tripod pointing at gulls.... I'm as close as I can get without risk of flushing them.... Just enjoying the moment when these stupid rambler sorts walk straight past me and into the gulls flushing them everywhere !!

WHAT THE F**K ?? These numbskulls have got the whole empty beach to walk along and they could see I was watching the birds ????

All I can think is that they've got shit for brains !! FUGGIN RAMBLERS !!! Thats it, they're on my list too now !! Yep when my plan for world domination comes together..... I shall ban dog walkers from Newton, and anyone found disturbing birds will be shot on sight !! Or maybe I'll hunt them with dogs...... mmmmm.... no I think I'll save that pleasure for those tweed clad hunting shooting lot.....

Anyway as I was saying.... February makes my mind ramble a bit....

So.... the gulls buggered off, and I walked back along the beach.... The sea was very quiet, 2 red throated divers, 16 goldeneye, 50 odd wigeon and 9 common scoter were just offshore.....

Just offshore....... unfortunately these are NOT surf scoter....

Scoter.....

The walk back up to High Newton was uneventful and I saw naff all birds.. but the afternoon moon was pretty cool....

Pretty cool......

Newton Pool & Newton Point, 9th Feb 2008

After three weeks of luggin sofas about, tripping over cardboard boxes and bin liners full of junk, I decided it was time to get a break from the joys of moving into my new flat and get back to Newton.

First off, I headed towards Newton Pool. The flood behind Newton Village is starting to look like Lake Baikal !! Hardly any field left in fact.....

The birds like it too..... the highlight of the morning was a cracking black-tailed godwit on this flood...

Blackwit

Also around the Flood was 1 knot, 17 dunlin, 3 ringed plovers 50 curlew, 14 redshank, and a large flock of lapwing and golden plover..... The vast majority of the teal in the area seemed to be using this pool too, with over 100 birds present....

Newton pool was quiet, by comparison, with just 12 goldeneye and a few teal........ there was very little else here......

It was a seriously murky day, this can be seen in my photo of the castle below............

A quick check of Embleton Bay produced two red throated divers and the usual eiders.....


The shoreline Newton Haven had a small flock of sanderling..... and a grey plover and purple sandpiper were poking about in the seaweed.....

Seaweed pokers.......

Surprisingly, there was a total lack of other waders Newton Haven, 7 bar tailed godwits were roosting on the rocks offshore.... but that was about it...... There was disturbance on the beach, so I suspect many of the waders around the flood pool will have come over from Newton Haven beach.

A walk on the grassland towards Newton Point produced two grey partridge, and my first singing skylark of the year !! At the point itself there were five red throated divers...... and I noted a small northward passage of guillemots, three small groups of between 3 and 7 birds in 5 minutes watching.

It seemed pretty quiet all round, I had pictures to hang and bookshelves to assemble so I headed off home again..... Sad isn't it !!!

I'M BACK !!!

Due to my serious lack of posting activity on this blog for the last three weeks, one or two concerned friends have called or e-mailed me to find out if I'd died or something !!

No I am not dead, but I have been enduring a fate worse than death.....

I've been................. MOVING HOUSE !!!!

AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH !!!

What a fuggin nightmare !!! It's two weeks on and I'm still surrounded by cardboard boxes and bin liners full of junk that have accumulated throughout my life..... my bird books are still packed in boxes, and my book shelves are still lying in unassembled bits......

Having said all of this I'm happy !! My new flat is taking shape and started to feel like my home. Moving house gave me a great excuse to go home and visit my family in Staffordshire (where I was brought up) and collect some of my belongings from my parents dusty loft !!

Returning to Staffordshire also gave me the opportunity to revisit my old local patch.... Chasewater.

I started birding as a teenager and for a number of years Chasewater was my local patch, as a youngster I learnt a lot at Chasewater and was encouraged by a number of other local birders there. I was free on Saturday the 2nd of Feb, so I couldn't resist having a day around the old patch.

Chasewater has changed a lot over the years, but I was delighted to bump into all of the same faces from my teenage birding years ! Graham, Chas, Julian and John were all there ! When I was a teenager, I looked up to these guys, and I still do today. They helped me with my rather crap birding skills, and so it was great to see them all still birding around Chasewater on their weekends !!

It's been about two or three years since I last visited Chasewater, and once again it didn't disappoint.....

GND gave great views catching crayfish off the dam wall

...... and another was in the middle of the reservoir !!

Next up a bit of grebe action.....

Slav...

Goosanders were one of my firm favourites as a teenager birding at Chasewater....

Cool birds......

Notice anything unusual about this pic of goldeneye and goosanders ?

Smew !!!

Chasewater is famous for its winter gull roosts, this particular night I saw 2 adult med gulls, and a second winter yellow-legged gull. Unfortunately just before I arrived at the gull roost a boat flushed everything. As a result I missed 2 caspian gulls and another yellow-legged gull.... ARSE !!

2 med gulls...

Of course my blog post wouldn't be complete with a crappy distant photo of some dodgy looking gull.... so here it is....................

A third med "ish" type gull,

This unusual bird looked like a med, it appeared to be in adult type plumage, but lacked the typical "med mask", it also had a lot of dark in the bill (which I'm guessing is unusual for an adult bird). To my eye this bird also had an odd shaped head for your typical med..... so what is it ? a dodgy hybrid maybe ?.... or maybe just an unusual looking med ? Let me know if you have any thoughts on this.......

So....... What can I say.... I had a great day re-visiting the old patch, Chasewater is still FUGGIN ACE !!! If you want to know more about birding Chasewater click the link below.....

Click this !!....... AWESOME CHASEWATER WEBSITE