What birds (are you/have you been) watching? What birds have been watching you?

[Vox Humana]

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... still longing for the swifts

On past form, Swifts should arrive in our valley on Sunday - or, if we're very lucky, Friday. :)

Mrs Humana and I have not been out much of late so have seen little. Last Saturday we had a day out on the moors and didn't see much at all, although there were a couple of very fine Whinchats (so well camouflaged against the straw-coloured bracken) and a Cuckoo flew past right under our noses.

[Richard Tarleton]

My first swift midday today, Marloes Peninsula. No cuckoos, though

[vinteuil]

Marloes

... o lucky you, to be there. In my childhood we went there almost every year from 1957 - 1964.

A magical place....

[ardcarp]

Alas cuckoos now absent in our neighbourhood.
Hoping to get to The Isles of Scilly where there's usually one per island, or so it seems.

[Stanfordian]

Saw a Goldfinch in hedges yesterday in the early morning on a coast road by the Ribble Estuary close to the Irish sea. It's the first Goldfinch I recall seeing in this area.

[Lat-Literal]

... o lucky you, to be there. In my childhood we went there almost every year from 1957 - 1964.

A magical place....

I agree.

Several times to Marloes, 1972-1978.

All the recent posts have been enjoyable to read.

I would welcome advice on whether a trip to or around Brownsea would be as rewarding to an ornithology novice as a visit to RSPB Arne given their close proximity and or but the inaccessibility of the latter other than by car. A plus point with the former is, of course, the red squirrel. Also, I don't "understand" Poole Harbour, having only seen it from distance.

[agingjb]

We probably preferred the boat trip to Brownsea for birdwatching (in good and calm weather). But our visit to Arne was just a family walk, not a guided tour.

[Lat-Literal]

We probably preferred the boat trip to Brownsea for birdwatching (in good and calm weather). But our visit to Arne was just a family walk, not a guided tour.

Thank you - that is very useful and it's in line with what I had hoped to hear.

[AmpH]

A recent enjoyable day trip to the North West and in particular to the Arnside / Silverdale area brought back memories of teenage years when I lived nearby. Whilst favourite woodlands were alive with bird song, visits to old haunts for Lessor Spots and Hawfinch were sadly unrewarded , although a siting of a splendid male Yellowhammer ( singing lustily - ' some bread and a little cheese ' ) was very welcome , particularly as this appears to be yet another species in decline due principally to habitat loss.

Visiting a well known nearby crag revealed a peregrine nest with scope views able to pick out the head of one of the adults on the nest. The place was alive with Jackdaws in particular as well as the loud ' kronks ' from the nearby Raven nest on another part of the crag which was overflowing with four young which will surely have fledged by now.

The walk to the two sea hides of the RSPB Leighton Moss Reserve was full of warbler song. As well as the ubiquitous Chiff Chaff and the beautiful descending song of Willow Warblers , there were numerous opportunities to compare the songs of Reed and Sedge Warblers, with the scratchy song of the latter dominant. Best of all were the continuous and insistent reeling of ( probably three ) Grasshopper Warblers, with just one brief sighting in a tree of this notorious skulker. Watching Avocets from the Allen Hide was as pleasurable as ever. In the past I have seen Mediterranean Gull in amongst the Black Headed Gulls on the islands from this hide, but there were no sitings this time, which was a pity as an adult Med Gull is such a stunning bird.

Visiting the main Leighton Moss reserve, it was good to see two hunting male Marsh Harriers and a handsome drake Garganey, but little else of note. Sadly, for reasons which have not yet been identified, this reserve is no longer the Bittern stronghold it once was.

An enjoyable day's birding and good walking blessed by ( unusually ) good weather for the North West was rounded off with excellent fish and chips from the same Arnside establishment which has been going for many years - long may it continue !

[ardcarp]

That sounds like a lovely trip, AmpH. What treasures I am missing by seldom venturing 'oop North' or in my case above the M4 corridor. Talking of which, I was at a friend's house last week, and Mrs Friend shouted rather urgently that we should come into the garden, pronto. There was a red kite wheeling around, ten-a-penny in Oxfordshire and The Chilterns, but not often seen here in rural Devon.

[P. G. Tipps]

We heard the delightful and much-varied repertoire of the song-thrush in our garden yesterday evening lasting for well over an hour.

A quite stunning performance !

[Vox Humana]

Mrs H and I are just back from a week in San José near Almeria in the driest part of Spain. We spent a fair bit of time birding, but didn't see a great deal. Spotless Starlings were very common, but much more shy than our British ones. They wouldn't let us get closer than about 75 yards. Collared Doves are abundant too. In the semi-desert habitat around here we saw many Black Wheatears and also several smart Black-eared Wheatears. Larks were abundant, but I'm hopeless with their songs and the only ones I was able to identify were Thekla and Crested Larks - when I could tell the two apart, which wasn't often! Red-rumped Swallows and Pallid Swifts were common too, but, except for Sardinian Warblers and Serins, I found smaller birds rather difficult to find. I was very disappointed not to find any Trumpeter Finches, despite twice going up into a mountain area where there is supposed to be a good population of them. We saw hardly any Hoopoes or Bee-eaters and no Rollers at all - another disappointment (I've literally seen more Rollers in Britain than I have in southern Spain and France. They're not small birds, so why are they so difficult?). The salt pans at Cabo de Gata offered the best selection of birds, including Greater Flamingos, Avocets, Black-winged Stilts, Kentish Plovers, Gull-billed Terns, a couple of Slender-billed Gulls, Spanish Wagtails, a Southern Grey Shrike (formerly just a race of our Great Grey Shrike, but now considered a different species) and a fine male Montagu's Harrier. Further along the road, at the lighthouse, we saw an Audouin's Gull and almost nothing else.

[vinteuil]

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... recently back from annual visit to Ireland (West Cork) - lovely weather, egrets, curlews, stonechats... the only disappointment : the cliff tops near where we stay usually abound in sand martins, but none in evidence this year. Perhaps it was a bit early - we usually go in June...



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[Richard Tarleton]

Sand martins should have been present, if you're just back.....

Mrs H and I are just back from a week in San José near Almeria in the driest part of Spain.

A fascinating part of Spain - I found stone curlews and little bustards on the rough coastal steppe just along from Almería airport when we were there (a few years ago now) and like you failed to find trumpeter finch. We visited Nijar, scene of the real-life events that inspired Lorca's Blood Wedding (bit of an atmosphere there, you felt strangers not entirely welcome). Lovely chapter on Almería in Gerald Brenan's South from Granada, his memoir of life in the Alpujarras in the 1920s.....

[Vox Humana]

Sand martins should have been present, if you're just back.....



A fascinating part of Spain - I found stone curlews and little bustards on the rough coastal steppe just along from Almería airport when we were there (a few years ago now) and like you failed to find trumpeter finch. We visited Nijar, scene of the real-life events that inspired Lorca's Blood Wedding (bit of an atmosphere there, you felt strangers not entirely welcome). Lovely chapter on Almería in Gerald Brenan's South from Granada, his memoir of life in the Alpujarras in the 1920s.....

Did you manage to see Dupont's Lark? We went to a couple of sites, but I'm not sure I even heard one. Being humble country yokels, Mrs H and I don't really care for cities and so we tend to avoid them. At least it saves us involuntarily scowling at bullrings. I gather that quite a lot of places in Almeria Province, including San José, were used for locations in the film "For a Few Dollars More", while the Playa de Monsul near San José crops up in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade".