29/05/2020 Homefield Wood, Buckinghamshire

Military Orchid (Orchis militaris): Today I found myself back in Buckinghamshire, this time on the hunt for another new orchid to the UK list, the military orchid.

Homefield Wood reserve is nestled in a beautiful part of the world, just north of the Chilterns. The reserve is a short stroll along a Forestry Commission track that intersects a woodland plantation. The military orchids can be found in a couple of meadows and are well sign posted.

The soldiers stood out like sore thumb as instead of the typical military camouflage outfit these military orchids wore a raspberry-ripple pink outfit.

This year I always seem to be a week behind, earlier in the afternoon I went to Hartslock Nature Reserve in Oxfordshire, to find a crispy looking monkey orchid, too dry and too hot to last.
And it was the same for these orchids, some were still looking fine with individual flowers in great condition but on the whole the colony was on its way out fro another year. 

Military orchids are pterry similar to both the lady orchid and to monkey orchid, they are all robust gregarious orchids. These orchids sepals and petals form an extended hood and in the case of military orchids they form a pointed hood likened to that of a soldiers helmet, but one which is pale on the outside and marked with darker purple or sometimes green parallel lines inside.

This was a really nice place and is know for fly, bee, spotted, common twayblade and white helleborine of only the later two I was able to find, although the helleborine was still in bud.

27/05/2020 Knocking Hoe NNR, Bedfordshire

Burnt-tip Orchid (Neotinea ustulata): After spending the morning surveying close to Milton Keynes I decided to make the most of my time down in this part of the world and hunt down dome special orchids.

Just north of the Chilterns is a small area of flowery chalk grassland known for supporting the only population of burnt-tip orchids to be found in Bedfordshire.

Knocking Hoe is also famous for more rare stuff including  moon carrot, spotted catsear, field fleawort, burnt tip orchid and pasque flower

As soon as I reached reserve, parking in the nearby Hexton Car Park and walking back along the public footpath towards the reserve entrance I soon found myself climbing a chalk hill. 

The specials of the site are the Burnt tip Orchids, found in small mesh protected enclosures, but a few rouges can be found outside this enclosure, all were marked with a red flag.

These were my first ever burnt-tips and was particularly surprised by their diminutive size.

It is so-called because the unopened flowers at the top of the flowering spike are dark purple appearing burnt while the opened flowers at the base of the spike are white or pale pink with raised purple spots.

These beautiful little orchids have seen one of the severest declines of all wild orchids during the last 50 years and is now very rare. A special flower that likes tightly grazed chalk grassland but has seen farming practices change with more areas being ploughed and the cusession of grazing livestock.

Looks like I got lucky too, the weather has been particularly dry and hot, there was even talk of a hosepipe ban on the radio during my journey down. The dry weather has sped up their flowering stage and many were on the way to going over and looking brown aroudn the edges.

I managed to find the last few in looking splendid.

23/05/2020 Northwick Warth, Gloucestershire

Collared Pratincole: A long overdue bird for the UK life list, after dipping two previously. Although not only did the bird remain at some distance the weather conditions were dreadful, with 40 mile per hour winds the bird kept hunkered down.

Still, despite the very poor record shots it snow on the list, a cracking bird to boot!

19/05/2020 Adderbury, Oxfordshire

Hoopoe: It would have been rude not have stopped off for this cracking little bird, considering I was working 15 minutes down the road from it!

Arriving at first light the bird showed well, if briefly a couple of times before performing a disappearing act.

Its beautiful down here, not only did I get lucky with the Mediterranean weather, I got lucky and saw this Mediterranean bird the only thing out of place was the large four wheel drives parked outside of the very well to do leafy suburbs of Oxfordshire.

I watched as the bird was fed on leatherjackets on a well manicured lawn on Rawlins Close, Twyford. Not only did the bird remained pretty distant, the birders who arrived throughout the very early morning kept their 2m distance too! Avery well behaved bunch.

To whom it may concern, you can attend a twitch, put out news of a rare bird and people obey the guidance.....

16/05/2020 Brockholes, Preston

Temminck's Stint: Today was my birthday and after a lovely morning having been spoilt by Dawn and our little baby Autumn. I was keen to set off out somewhere.

Luckily there are some very decent local birders who are still putting news of the local rarities and not forming cliques and suppressing news, I doubt a dozen local birders would have made a significant impact on the already awful Covid-19 statistics.

It was Bill Aspin who found the bird and broke the news. Thanks Bill.

Upon arriving the bird was foraging on the shores of pit no:1.

Here are some images I took this time last year during my birding trip to Lesvos, Greece.

Theses bird are tiny, greyish-brown waders with a white belly and short, stubby, yellowish legs. On these images from Lesvos you can clearly make out its yellowish legs.





Nice to have bumped in to Bill and local birders Mark and Gill Cookson, albeit from a socially approved distance.

26/04/2020 My Garden, Abram, Wigan

Blackcap: Nice to get this male blackcap in the garden this morning they are renowned songsters, famous for its warm, musical fluting notes. Lovely little things.

In the past I've only ever had overwintering females that have visited the garden feeders so it was kind of a new garden tick and during these strange times of lockdown I will take any small positive when it comes to birding.

Stay safe everyone.

18/04/2020 River Ribble, Preston

Osprey: This magnificent bird of prey has spending much of its time on the motorway bridge over the M6, close to the Brockholes nature reserve.  It's not unusual to get passing ospreys during beginning of Spring at Brockholes, but its exceptional to see one sitting right alongside the motorway traffic and 44 ton lorries as it fishes from the bridge.

Before I get lampooned by the Corona-police,  I did not travel specifically to see this bird,. I was delivering essential supplies to Dawns 90 year old grandmother who lives alone in Carnforth.


This was *not* a specific twitch.






When I arrived there was no sign of the bird and thankfully no other birders, it appears that folk are adhering to the lockdown restrictions. I then relocated the bird down stream rooting on a fallen tree.

The bird remained here for some time before flying off up river toward the M6 motorway bridges. I was thrilled and hot on my heels behind it.

I see ospreys most yaers, mainly during the passage to their breeding grounds and its only when you see them up close and personal you really get to appreciate how stunning these birds are.

As promised the bird landed on the bridge and the motorway as the traffic roared past and started to eye up its lunch.









There are no records of nesting ospreys in Lancashire since the mid-18th century, since George the 3rd st on the throne - more than 250 years ago. So I'm sure lost of local birders and the Wildlife Trust, the guys who manage Brockholes will be getting excited that there is a long staying bird in the area.

Aa side note, Brockholes is currently closed to the public during the lockdown and under lockdown regulations, photography and bird watching are not considered “essential travel” but if you are taking your daily exercise down near the River Ribble then keep your open for this little beauty.

Stay home. Stay safe.

15/03/2020 Grimsby, Lincolnshire

Black-throated Thrush: After spending the morning dipping the Richard’s pipit at Flamborough, a bird I have embarrassingly yet to catch up with, but not without trying. I’m now racking up a good tally of Dick pipits I’ve dipped!

Tobie and I headed south towards Grimsby for the longs staying black-throated thrush that has been posing well for toggers.  I’ve seen a  few of these birds over the years and most recently in December 2019 when I went down to see one at Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire.

Back then I thought to myself ‘this is the best looking male bird I will see’ as it showed particularly well. But I was wrong, this Grimsby bird take the trophy hand down. Upon arriving the bird was fast asleep high up in a tree juts off the roundabout outside the Grimsby Institute, a very busy urban area.

The bird eventually woke up, preened and started actively looking at the ground before hopping down to collect some worms.

The bird did this a few times and on one occasion it decided to spend a prolonged period on the ground in search of more worms. This attractive bird has travelled a long, long way to end up in North East Lincolnshire, Grimsby of all places.

 Black-throated thrush are native to India and  Eastern Asia a remarkable journey. The bird was found by a local birder who works at the institute and put some image sup on Twitter.

Perhaps this is a lesson to us all, wherever we work, its always worth keeping your eyes open for something rare. You never know what you might find.

07/03/2020 Torbay, Devon

Cirl Bunting: My mum invited us down to stay in a holiday home just outside of  Paignton as she wanted to spend some quality time with our gorgeous, edible baby girl, Autumn. Not one to pass up a freebee I was quick to sign up and head down.

Upon arriving I was keen to visit Broadsands, the best place in the UK to see and photograph cirl (pronounced sirl’) bunting.

Paignton in Devon is famous for growing population of little yellow cirl bunting. Theses are very special birds that were once a widespread bird in England. Similar to yellowhammer in the way they were associated with farmland at the beginning of the 20th century they were widespread across southern England.

But by 1989 their population crashed, dramatically to around 120 pairs exclusively restricted to south Devon with a handful left in Cornwall and Somerset. And things only go worse for these charming buntings as by the mid 1990s its range was restricted entirely to south Devon.

Due to this alarming trend a very unusual trail began in 2004. This trial saw hand reared chicks taken from the wild and then release them successfully. This trial was a success and over six successive years, 75 chicks were taken under licence from nest sites in Devon and were hand reared by aviculturalists in Cornwall.

This has seen the cirl bunting population boom and is now self sustaining, although they tend to live their entire lives within 2 miles of the nest in which they were born so their dispersal and distribution is confined to Torbay in Devon.

The males are cracking little birds, the male has a bright yellow head, with a black crown, eyestripe and throat and a greenish breast band across its otherwise yellow underparts. It also has a heavily streaked brown back.

The female is much more like the yellowhammer, but has a streaked grey-brown rump and chestnut shoulders.

Broadsands has a very large car park overlooking a small bay and the sea, but it's within the car park you will find these birds. The edges of the overspill car park gets seeded regularly during the winter and attracts all sorts of birds including small flocks of cirl bunting.

Yellowhammer (female): The seeded area naturally provides feeding opportunities for other birds, yellowhammer, robin, dunnock and chaffinch were all coming down to feed.

Yellowhammer (male): The birds on this seeded area were not shy and all it took was a bit of patient and fieldcraft to get close enough for some nice shots.

Dunnock: I particularly enjoyed spending time with the dunnocks that came down to feed, they zipped around the seeded area constantly on guard but still gave me some cracking views, u[ close they really are a stand out bird, despite them being so common and widespread.

There has been a particularly scarce bird, one that I need to my list overwintering Torbay over recent months, well before Christmas.

A drake blue-winged teal, not only is it in the area but its now moulting into its summer plumage and starting to look pretty smart.

Secretly for me, this was the whole reason for my trip to Devon. For sure it was great to see my mum and see her spend time with our little baby but I was particularly keen to go down to see this bird.

Blue-winged Teal: The long staying duck has been overwintering at Mansands for months. The bird seems at home foraging amongst the aquatic plants for food around the marshy edges of the lake.

A small duck, the adult male can be distinguished by the conspicuous white crescent in front of the eye, the broad, white band on the hind flanks, and the pale, gray-blue forewing, giving the species its common name.

Mansands like much of Devon is a lovely little place to spend the morning, although there is one mighty steep hill to navigate as you are unable to park at the bottom of the long lane due to it not being suitable for cars.

This steep hill was a killer....but worth it.

Many thanks to my mum for putting us up in such a lovely holiday home and for such a great weekend.