29/08/2022 The Audenshaw Reservoirs, Manchester

Pectoral Sandpiper: Bank Holiday Monday twitch to see the local pec sand and red-necked phal, after dropping Dawn and Autumn off at a local museum I headed over and gained assess.  

Dunlin: The pec was closely associating with a single dunlin on No.1 Res. Feeding along the newley exposed rocky spits that have been revealed as the water level continued to drop. 

Dunlin & Pec Sand: I've never seen the water so low here, its crazy. Its so low on No.1 Res that there is vegetation growing in the basin of the reservoir, but this makes for some great birding habitat and looks great at the moment. 
 

27/08/2022 Recar, Cleveland

Greater Sand Plover: Taking a break from watching dragonflies, I decided to head out early and twitch the greater sand plover at Redcar. I

 had a wedding to shoot in Doncaster so thought I'd spend the morning a little further north.  Also having only seen one before, the Spurn bird back in 2018. These birds breed in the semi-deserts of Turkey and eastwards through central Asia so when one turns up on the British shores its a big deal. 

When I arrived there were already a large crowed gathered along the beach watching the bird. The bird was feeding along the tide line and even picking at the washed up kelp. 

Compared to its native cousins the ringed plover the greater sand plover has a thick-bill, long-legs and papers to be chunkier in appearance. They also posses grey backs and white underparts. The breast, forehead and nape are chestnut, and there they have a distictive black eye mask. 

25/08/2022 North Cave Wetlands, East Riding of Yorkshire

Migrant Hawker (male): These awesome, stunning  dragons skimming low across the water or settled with their wings open are a pretty common sight on calm, sunny days in late August. 

The large blue adults are day-flying and are usually seen over freshwater, near river banks, streams or ponds. Adult dragons are relatively short-lived lasting around two months. 

Brown Hawker (male): I'm having a little bit of a love affair with dragonflies at the moment, so having been working right next to North Cave Wetlands I just had to go and tick brown hawker. 

I spent hours here,  North Cave is a great little place, a patchwork of habitats is key with deep lakes, wet grassland, gravel islands, reedbed and hedgerows perfect for dragons. 

Its just half an hour’s drive from Hull and managed by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust already has a big reputation for some impressive wildlife and plenty of great ways to enjoy it.

Migrant Hawker (male & female): The circular walk around the main lakes lead to patches of reeds where the the skies were teaming with dragons and damsels. 

Common Darter (female): I could have spent hours here if it wasn't for the heat and the early arming catching upon me. 

23/02/2022 Risley Moss Nature Reserve, Warrington

Black Darter (adult male): Toady I visited a lovely local reserve on the edge of Warrington, one that I have' spent much time there before. Risley Moss has always been famous fro its Odonata and one dragonfly I have been wanting to catch up with is the black dater.

Black Darter (immature male): These small narrow-bodied dragonflies make moorlands, heaths and bogs their home and are  are on the wing from June to October. Their name is pretty apt as they seen darting back and fourth in flight, moving forward suddenly from a hovering position to catch their insect-prey.

Black Darter (adult male):  It's the males who possess a slender 'nipped' abdomen and immature males who are adorned with prominent yellow flashing toward the front of the abdomen.  

Unfortunately this species is scarce in Cheshire but they are doing very well at Risley Moss, you'll find them in abundance here. 

Black Darter (female): Females are golden bronze with a black strip along the length of the abdomen and lack the lender 'nipped' abdomen.  

If you want to see black darter here your best bet is to hard down to the boardwalk which takes you across what they have names the Mini Moss. Look out for the darters as they rest and recharge in the sun by bathing on the wooden fence which lines the walk way.

 

Common Darter: There are also plenty of male and female common darter along the fences and also plenty at the small pond at the back of the visitor centre. 

Southern Hawker (female): These gang dragons were also seen along the Mini Moss boardwalk, this female was observed ovipositing. It was fascinating to watch as she extended and twisted her abdomen looking for crevices amongst the mosses and litter, just a few centimetres over the pond surface to deposit her eggs. 

This large and inquisitive dragonfly, with its vivid apple green, yellow and black pattern seemed to purposefully approach me when I was walking along the boardwalk, possibly intersecting her flightpath. Pretty cool things. 

21/08/2022 St Aidan's RSPB

Spotted Crake: Sunday took me over the moors, towards Leeds and to one of my favourite nature reserves St Aidens formally Swillington Ings. 

A former opencast mine for many years and now a restored wonderful nature reserve with serval large pools, lakes ditches and muddy scrapes. 

The bird was on Cattle Gate Pool, where it shared the muddy scrape with a wood sand, a couple of spoonbill, yellow wags and greenshank. 

This starling sized birds resembles the water rail, but is smaller,  has a much shorter beak, and is a more uniform olive brown in colouring, with white dots scattered all over its plumage.

Famous for being masters of concealment, these shy and elusive birds can be particularly hard to see amongst the reds and muddy edges of lakes, but not here. 

This individual was happy coming out into the open and feeding along the muddy banks of a small pool, alongside the coots and waders. 

Great to see. 

 

20/08/2022 withal Moss, Shropshire

Red-backed Shrike: Positioned on the edge of the the English border, near Whitchurch in Shropshire and Wrexham in Wales you'll find one of the biggest and best raised bogs in Britain. 

Its a great place for dragonflies and damselflies, but also birds. its funny actually as I've been working for days at a time in Shrewsbury (not too far from Wixhall) and while working in the area the bird news has been pretty quiet, then when the job finishes a quality bird turns up. Typical. 

The Red-Backed Shrike's Latin name is Lanius collurio with Lanius coming from the Greek for butcher! As this species is known as the butcher bird due to its rather barbaric behaviour. It uses its sharp hooked beak and to tear its prey apart and will also impale its prey onto anything sharp, usually thorns or even barbed wire.

This bird definitely lived up to its name as it spent more of its time while I was there deep in a hawthorn hedge feeding on cached pre.

It appeared to be feeding on a small mammal, butchered and impaled on a thorn. Possibly a larder hidden deep in bush. Fascinating to watch it pick at the bones and remove flash while sticking it down on the thorns. 
 

07/08/2022 Grafham Water, Cambridgeshire

Cape Gull (Kelp Gull): Well, its not everyday a first for Britain shows up on a Sunday on a fresh water reservoir in the middle of the country! 

After photographing a wedding on the Saturday I was looking forward to a some local birding and a relaxing afternoon at home with the baby. 

Instead once news broke and after a few frantic calls, texts and WhatsApps I was racing down the motorways and across to Grafham Water.

 

A subspecies of the Kelp gull, also known as the Cape gull (Larus dominicanus vetula) this bird should be summering in Southern Africa. The Cape gull superficially resembles our Great-black backed gull and is intermediate in size between these two species. 

There really some other subtle differences but, if I was to be honest this level of gulling is above my pay-grade. Personally I think this would be a very easy bird to walk past and discount it as a GBBG.

Luckily there are some masterful gullers out there who can pinned this down as Cape, incredible.

When we arrived we had just missed the bird feeding on a dead fish, this was were the prized shots were coming from. The fish brought the bird much closer then anywhere else it when around the edge of the dam and the light was also better.

We weren't too disappointed as the bird showed well, especially towards the late afternoon when it alighted upon the railing of the water tower. 

Great twitch, plenty of friendly familiar faces and a legendary bird in the bag.

02/07/2022 Bwlch Nant Yr Arain, Aberystwyth

Red Kite: On Monday Marc Hughes found a black kite at the the red kite feeding station at Bwlch Nant Yr Arain. It came in after the main red kite feeding frenzy and spend the rest of the afternoon around the area. 

This week I have taken some work in Shrewsbury, and was situated around an hour and a half away from the black kite, so I thought id try my luck and waited until 3pm when the feeding starts. 

When I arrived out was pouring down and the area was shrouded in low cloud, I didn't think we would see any kites let alone the black kite if it turned up.

Bwlch Name Yr Arain is a forestry Commission visitor centre situated high above the Melindwr (Watermill) Valley with panoramic views of Cardigan Bay and The Cambrian Mountains.

 

It was designed to give the small numbers of red kites a helping hand and to encourage them to gather together, a natural pattern of behaviour for kites.  These days 100’s of kites gather for up to 2 hours prior to feeding.

Siskin: Eventually the rain cleared and the clouds lifted, almost like a miracle as it seemed to happed daed on 3pm, feeding time. 

Well over 200 red kites came swooping down to feed, but no black kite. We waited and watched the skies hoping the bird would make an appearance, but no, not today.

Despite the dip, it was a great lotted day out. This place is, in my opinion miles better then Gigrin Farm. The main reason being is that you can get closer to the kites and you aren't restricted to sitting in a. hide so you can get al all-round view and wider shots of the birds. 

Also this place is FREE!

Lesser Redpoll: IHats off to Marc, some folk are simply get lucky and others hard work pays off. Mac is a quality birder and did well to find the black kite.

'll defiantly be back to this red kite feeding station, maybe next time I'll bring Autumn with me.