Biro Bird of the Day Kingfisher

I've been really lucky with the Kingfishers this 'summer', and there's no doubting they are one of the nicest looking British birds.

This is copied from Ian Traynor's image on the Tophill Low blog.

Biro Bird of the Day: LBB

Soo, with my new found interest in Gulls, here is my second drawing. A lesser black backed gull. Not the one I saw today, but a recent image taken on the Approach road, from the Tophill Blog.

15/09

Incredibly, I managed yet another Osprey today, my 5th or 6th in just over a month! Despite it being much higher than the ones I saw from Borough Pits earlier in the month, it stuck around for a good few minutes meaning I got a good look at it, shortly before being joined by a buzzard above it, which was great for comparative purposes! And that wasn't all on the raptor front, Kestrels and Sparrowhawks were present, along with 2 other unidentified raptors! 


When the work was done, I went over to the Car park hide to test out my newly acquired Gull knowledge (not very much at all yet) and practice id'ing the more common species, which was a nice end to the day!

Biro Bird of the Day: Common Sand

I have seen three common sandpipers in total, but I got some great views on Sunday from south marsh, when one went looking for worms on the sandy island directly in front of the hide. This is drawn from Richard's Picture on the Tophill Blog.

Biro BH

This is my first Biro Gull. It was more for me to practice drawing gulls rather than artistic. I actually found it quite difficult to draw because when it comes to gulls proportion and shapes are everything, if you want to be able to tell them apart, as I recently learned. For that reason, it's no where near perfect. Just to clarify, it's supposed to be a second winter black headed.

Next time, I'll make sure the beak's a bit less chunky, and that I leave enough room for the tail in it's entirety. I welcome constructive criticism  from Larid experts.. 

11/09

Today I was volunteering again, but only for the morning. I spent a bit of the afternoon looking at South Marsh and looking at some interesting new Fungi. Then I spent the rest looking for Gulls from the Car park hide, and successfully managed to id 5 species which made me v happy. Unfortunately, however, I did miss a Med by 10 minutes, as I was later informed...

Biro Bird of the Day: Whitethroat

This is the Whitethroat from yesterday, copied from James's picture. As you can see, I had to re do some parts, hence the little pieces of paper carefully sellotaped on top.

And the hand is also terrible, but meh. When I see another Whitethroat, I'll give it a second go.