I took some of yesterday off and went to North Norfolk. The first call was RSPB Titchwell:
That one came out of the camera like that.
This was what it actually looked like:
It was cold, bright, and that is the moon in that shot, at around midday.
That said, spring was in the air:
The birds were amazing. There were Brent geese in abundance:
They are magnificent - and in their hundreds, as they were, their soft calls are a beautiful sound.
There were ducks galore. This is a pintail:
Waders got a big look in. This is a redshank:
Curlew (our biggest wader) were out in some numbers:
On the beach, sanderling, one of our smallest waders, were as frantic as they always are, but they need to be as they will be flying to Scandinavia soon:
That was taken on 1/4000 of a second and I am still not sure I froze it.
But the picture I might have liked best was this one:
That is rwo reed buntings and a dunnock, enjoying the sun.
It was a good day out, and quite a lot of thinking was done as well.
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I envy you the sighting of the curlew particularly! I haven’t seen or heard one for years, probably about 20 years! Weeps. Last time I spotted a few was by the road from Llanbedrog to Pwllheli. There’s a longish straight run with marshland on the left as you head to Pwllheli, there were maybe 4 or 5. I still live in hopes that I’ll see some when we’re travelling to/from caravan. Husband thinks he may have seen some near Cym Farm last summer, close to the coastal path, so perhaps I will get lucky one of these years!
I can’t recall seeing one on Llyn.
I saw twelve together yesterday.
A personal aside on bird watching – I’m no twitcher but yesterday evening I was intrigued to hear, from inside the house, some quite distinct birdsong I didn’t recall hearing before. After looking out of various windows to find where it was coming from, I spotted the singer perched on the ridge of the house nextdoor, chirping an amazingly complex and varied song.
I couldn’t see it very well as it was dusk, but that made me think “nightingale?”. I’ve never knowingly heard one before, but a Google for samples confirmed it was indeed a nightingale. It remained there for at least 15 mins, singing away to the neighbourhood, producing an impressive and highly varied array of sounds.
I’ve no idea why it was there, and I’m sure I’ve never heard it before. This is on the Isle of Wight BTW.
Thanks, although I have to admit it is very unlikely you heard a nightingale. There has been no record of them in the U.K. this year according to the pretty reliable Bird Guides, and it would be astonishing if one was heard here in winter. The most likely bird you heard was a chaff chaff, which look broadly similar and have a strong song. But, I could be wrong.
Interesting, thanks. I’ve listened to examples of chiff chaff calls, and they don’t really match what I heard. It was very much more like those of nightingales, the variety of sounds and complex sequences were particularly arresting.
Unfortunately I didn’t have the presence of mind to record the bird!
I read that they don’t normally arrive until April, but could this be another example of disruption from a warming climate? This island does also have its own micro climate, distinctly slightly warmer than the mainland even though only a few miles away.
I agree that the IOW its Owen micro climate, but my check suggests no winter records of nightingales for a long time.
No one has recorded on in recent days on the IoW and BirdGuides is good for such things….
You need not be wrong. You may be right. But I know birders would doubt your claim.
Really lovely meditative photos!
Are the recent breakouts of avian influenza (H5N1) in Yorkshire (5th and 7th February – https://www.gov.uk/government/news/bird-flu-avian-influenza-latest-situation-in-england#gatherings) a cause for worry for wild bird populations?
In a word, yes
Not seeing much sign of it right now, but we did a year ago, and wild birds are being hit by it
That’s a nice series of photos (the first one with foreground detail I really like) and your shots of the waders are better than anything I’ve tried with birds for sure.
Thanks
I liked that first one – that was the best of four
And the light was very good
Nightingale
Interesting, because I am often up until 3 or 4 am when it is actually quiet, even here in Twickenham, and I have, for the past two winters and this one, been hearing what I am fairly sure is a nightingale. I don’t have powerful enough kit to make a digital recording of it that I could digitally compare to a nightingale recording, but I have listened to recordings from my books and the web inside the flat and then gone straight outside to listen to the bird again and the songs seem to me to be being made by the same bird, in pitch, rhythm and melody. I’m fairly certain it is a nightingale and it is indeed as lovely as Keats asserts.
You need to record and report it.
There’s a phone app called Merlin Bird ID that seems to identify birds quite clearly even when they’re not very loud. Might that be of use to you? @Padraic Boocock
It is in use on my phone right now.