Thursday, 26 March 2020

Black Bellied Dipper........Plus Local Birding

                                       March 14th : High Wycombe

                                                        
                                                          
Black Bellied Dipper.

On Saturday the 14th March i travelled to High Wycombe to look for the Black Bellied Dipper which had been seen near a waterfall along the river.

However on arrival i was informed is was showing on & off near Bassetsbury Manor , so with that news we headed off to that site, on arrival there was no more then 10 other birders and sure enough the Black Bellied Dipper was performing very well .


White eye lids.

It's been a few years since i have seen a native Dipper so seeing this Scandinavian race was a real bonus.


Black bellied Dipper with a Buddha !!!!

The BBD would often go missing for awhile but with patience it always came back to this area (while we were there anyway) , and by staying still it often came very close.

Black Bellied Dipper.



March 14th : Restharrow Scrape Sandwich

Raven.

Before heading off to High Wycombe we spent an hour at Restharrow Scrape at Sandwich Bay and saw a superb Raven fly quite low over the scrape, this was a new bird for my SBBO bird list.


March 21st : Bossenden Wood 


♀ Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

A trip to Bossenden Wood on Saturday the 21st March was a very good choice, our target bird was Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and after approx an hour searching we located a female LSW which eventually flew closer and gave us some very good views before flying off further into the wood.

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.

We decided to check the area it flew to and was delighted to hear it calling before seeing both male & female LSW together, really pleased to see these as it's not a species i see every year.

We also had some really good views of a Treecreeper.


Treecreeper.


March 23rd  :  Oare Marshes

♀ & ♂ Garganey

I spent a couple of hours at Oare Marshes on Monday afternoon the 23rd March and had great views of the pair of Garganey  on the East flood from the hide.

A walk to Dan's Dock produced distant and brief views of the Cattle Egret plus several Med Gulls were seen and heard.

COVID-19 VIRUS

As this Pandemic is reaching all corners of the World and our Governments request we all stay indoors for at least the next 3 weeks, i would like to take this opportunity to wish all followers and visitors of my blog a safe journey through these very troubled times.

Best Wishes

Robs Birding. 










Monday, 9 March 2020

White Winged Wonders ......At Dungeness NNR

                                             29th  February :  Dungeness  NNR

                                                        
                                                                     
Iceland Gull

Winter at Dungeness is probably the best time of year  to connect with White winged Gulls in Kent and this winter proved to be spot on.

After storms Ciara & Dennis Dungeness NNR was the place to be if you wanted to see Gulls in there 1000's !!!!

With lots of bivalve molluscs washed up because of the storms the Gulls were having a large feeding frenzy .



As the title of this post said, white winged wonders were evident in the form of several Med Gulls and a superb Juv Iceland Gull, which was incredibly hard to track down (well for us anyway) , it took 2 visits to finally connect with this superb bird.


Battling the waves

Iceland Gull.

We spent quite sometime searching for this bird over the 2 visits but eventually we caught up with it as it fed along the shore line by the fishing boats.


7th  March  : Dungeness NNR



Glaucous Gull

A week after seeing the Iceland Gull we were back down to Dungeness this time in the hope of seeing the Juv Glaucous Gull.

We bumped into JB & DB & NB who were already watching the Glaucous Gull which was roosting on the shingle bank.



Eventually the Glaucous Gull was disturbed by a family making their way along the beach , however  we were treated to some close flight views of the Glaucous Gull before it headed towards the lifeboat station.


Flight views.

We managed to re-locate the Glaucous Gull near the Lifeboat station where it spent most of the time on the sea with the occasional fly around.

Glaucous Gull