Waxwing!

So today was a brilliant day's birding: I saw my first Waxwing! 

Rob Jaques and myself were at Oak Road Playing fields on the look out for grass snakes, and after rescuing several toads from the path, we took a 5 min breather. I was just casually scanning  the trees above me and saw a small bird. This disappeared and was replaced by a slightly larger bird. From the profile, and colours I immediately said Waxwing, although I thought I was probably being stupid, as it's so late and it wasn't munching on berries as seems to be the typical behaviour. Luckily, despite the fact I had already made several stupid comments throughout the day, Rob still had a look was able to confirm, and took some pretty good pictures! It was amazing, and I never imagined getting that at all today, definitely one of if not the most awesome bird I've seen!

Picture by Rob Jaques

Essex

So this weekend I went to visit my relatives in Harwich Essex. Saturday afternoon was spent at Wrabness nature reserve, on the stour estuary, somewhere I've visited since I was really little. Although our arrival didn't coincide with the low tide, which meant only a couple of Redshank on the wader front, it was still a fairly successful trip with great views of RB Merganser, however not much else. But it was the short journey there that made it awesome. We were turning the corner, and I saw a fairly big green/ yellow bird fly across the road, so after shouting for the car to be stopped, I ran back up to the road, and I'm so glad I did because I saw my first Green Woodpecker, sitting on someone's lawn, and it was awesome! Apart from that, several common buzzards on the way back, and a few curlew and oyster catcher heard on the beach at Harwich, and that's about it, but a great weekend. 


Green Woodpecker related art coming soon! 

I will be back!

Hi all, sorry I haven't blogged in absolutely ages.I've been really busy with a lot of uni work and stuff, but I will get back to blogging very soon, and it will be twice as good as before! Here is a really rubbish paint drawing of James's picture of some snobs from today!

Snow Bunting 28/02/12

First Twitch Ever!

So today I was planning originally on spending the afternoon at Tophill, ut then my Dad finally offered to take me to Bempton so I could see the Desert Wheatear! It wasn't until we were on our way back to the visitor  centre that it finally decided to show, and it showed really well! What an beauty he was! Definitely one of the best birds I've ever seen, and a highly successful first twitch!

I do have more pics (courtesy of father), but at time of upload my computer was being annoying, so I'll add them later.

New Year List!

Happy New Year to all readers of Pink Cuckoos! I realise I've been really lazy for a while and not posted in ages, but I promise to get back on with updating my blog now the new year has started! So, with a new year comes a new year list and this is the first full year list for me! As per I spent the day at Tophill, and made a fairly good start to my year list:

1.Sparrowhawk
2.Kestrel
3.Pheasant
4.Blue Tit
5.Blackbird
6.Gadwall
7.Mallard
8.Mute Swan
9.Little Grebe
10.Teal
11.Siskin
12.Goldfinch
13.Long Tailed Tit
14.Great Tit
15.Lapwing
16.Grey Wagtail
17.Pied Wagtail
18.Black Headed Gull
19.Cormorant
20.Wren
21.Wigeon
22.Tufted Duck
23.Curlew
24.Greylag Goose
25.Black Tailed Godwit
26.Goldeneye
27.Green Winged Teal
28.Pintail Duck
29.Y front
30.Greenland Y front
31.Redshank
32.Shoveller
33.Pochard
34.G.C. Grebe
35.Smew
36.Common Gull
37.Herring Gull
38.Egyptian Goose
39.G.S. Woodpecker
40.Barn Owl
41.GBB Gull

As well as some basics at home before I went:
-Collared Dove
-Wood Pigeon
-Crow

Now, what to do tomorrow...

27/11/11

So today I was volunteering at Tophill, like most Sundays. And unlike most Sundays I actually felt like I did some work. In terms of new birds, the only lifer of the day was the Merlin, and that was too distant to say much about. However after acquiring my scope (which for those interested, remains in my possession, thanks to whoever suggested leaving the box in my parents room as a decoy!), I feel my gull id'ing skills have definitely improved over the past few months, although I saw nothing of particular note today. Other birds on the D-res were some Goldeneye, and I got great views of the Males, along with Shovellers and Wigeon. There was also a good goose presence, and again I got to see some Y-fronts.
      But Tophill wasn't the only excursion of the week. Yesterday I spent my day in Filey with Hull Uni Zoological Society, for my second Shoresearch for the YWT. This time was much better than the first, as we had a guide from the YWT go along with us, and I'd had much more practice using the Quadrats. Unfortunately we were only surveying Limpets with the Quadrats so my newly acquired knowledge of Latin names of Algae was not useful, but I still made a mental list for personal purposes! We saw plenty of Starfish, Anenomes (both Beadlet, and Dahlia, the latter having much more interesting colouration). As well as this, four species of crab, although the Harbour crab was dead, but still interesting to see, as it was a first for me. This wasn't the only first for the trip either, I got a new lifer; Purple Sandpiper, of which there were quite a lot. As well as this other birds were Oystercatcher, Turnstone, and a lone Curlew, along with Black Headed, GBB, and Herring Gulls. Getting to Filey turned out slightly problematic, and we ended up on the 'Shoreline Suncruiser', which was hilariously ironic due to the cold weather, and my chips got blown away, but apart from that a really great day, and Weekend!


Unfortunately no snaps from Tophill today (I was too busy working hard!), but here are the ones which are decent enough from Filey, and a short video of a Hermit Crab!

Dog Whelks and their Eggs

Red Common Periwinkle (Littornia littorea)

Starfish

Barnacles

Hermit Crab

10/11

Today I was at Tophill yet again, for volunteering! However yet again I failed to be of much help, but that did mean I got some birding done! The day started with me getting great views of a Male Goldeneye, followed by several females, which were showing well throughout the day. I did get a picture, of the perhaps less vividly coloured female, and it is more of a record shot than anything as I used digital zoom to the max. Like most of my visits, I got yet another lifer: Y fronts (In actual fact 25 of them). I did get a picture of these in flight too, but unfortunately it's not exactly the best again. On the topic of Geese, I saw the most talked about goose of the moment (despite being plastic), the supposed 'Blue Morph Ross's Goose' (Have I got that right?). Anyway, the pictures were crap compared to most other people's so I have not included those, but I have included some of Gulls and a Grey Squirrel instead! Finally, we ended the day by taking a walk up to South Marsh East in search of the Otter which had been seen the two previous Sundays. Unfortunately, we were unlucky from that point of view, but we did still see the incoming bird flocks, and it was quite a show, especially the sound made by their wings moving in unison as they change direction, which was awesome!

Female Goldeneye

Y-Fronts

Worse for wear 1st Winter? GBB

Everyone's favourite ;-)

Awesome spectacle, even if the Otters didn't make an appearance like we'd hoped!