Bird of the day!

[agrumpycow]

Driving home from work on the westbound M4 this evening the sun was setting in a beautiful smokey orange glow and a grey heron flew slowly over the motorway in front of me. Quite magical! (Well, as magical as you can get for the M4 on a Friday afternoon rush-hour )

[PMG]

Originally Posted by agrumpycow

Driving home from work on the westbound M4 this evening the sun was setting in a beautiful smokey orange glow and a grey heron flew slowly over the motorway in front of me. Quite magical! (Well, as magical as you can get for the M4 on a Friday afternoon rush-hour )

Anything uplifting on any motorway is worth the looking
Pauline

[PMG]

Originally Posted by blacknest

BTW for those not aware already, we're celebrating down here because Alice Holt Forest has been finally included in the new South Downs National Park which comes into being in 2012! Hooray! Well done to all who wrote letters, signed petitions etc

See :Alice Holt Forest Hampshire - Home Page for more details

That is good news - I remember signing last year I think - a while ago anyway - and I remember visiting and 'fungi-ing' there during sev past New Forest hols ....... in fact thinking back it was where a large long-legged tabby and white cat appeared out of the undergrowth and came for a walk with us! She was very friendly and rubbed and miowed all around me, then sat on my back as I was laid on the ground photographing some fungi or other!
Pauline

[PMG]

Originally Posted by wizzo

On my very first 'official' days birding today, I spotted a pair of Little Egret, a Kingfisher, a Goosander and the prize winner for me....a Green Woodpecker. I've never seen one before and it was feeding on a grass verge. I stopped for a closer look and after a fleeting glimpse, it flew up into the trees. I was stunned by it's sheer beauty. As a beginner, what a day!

Enjoy these 'early' days wizzo - I still remember the early times and I'm now 40 years down the line (and would like to go back and do it alll again! And I still recall how it felt seeing things I'd never seen before - magic!) Enjoy!
Pauline

[PMG]

For me it was catching up with the Great Northern Diver on Hollingworth Lake near Rochdale yesterday ....... we went on our last days off and had around 90 seconds worth of viewing and no pics before it went and 'hid'

I don't often go chasing after things deliberately and have had opportunities with divers inland before and not taken them as it makes me sad to think that a lot of these 'blown inland' birds are often found dead weeks later ......

But something prompted me to go and look and having 'dipped' with the camera the first time, yesterday I went back and had better views, tho it was moving around what is a large lake at break-neck speed (and I was actually seen to run - well jog with a hop in it!) to try and get in front of the bird as it fished along the front of the lake






It was well worth the visit I thought even tho its in winter plumage and prob a juvenile bird but my mind can 'see' it in all its glory next year in full black and white dress ....... gorgeous birds
Pauline

[Deer Stalker]

Highlights from the New Forest this morning were hundreds & hundreds of Redwings with a few Fielfare mixed in, a pair of Ravens, a few flocks of Crossbills & a calling Hawfinch.

[Jason Claxton]

10 Fieldfare over my house,also loads of Long-tailed Tits in the garden.

[Deer Stalker]

Bramblings in the wind & rain on the New Forest this morning.

[blacknest]

Originally Posted by Deer Stalker

Highlights from the New Forest this morning were hundreds & hundreds of Redwings with a few Fielfare mixed in.

I had a wet walk in Alice Holt yesterday...great streams of redwings again!

Why so many? The "pull" of berries in UK ? Or the "push" of not enough to eat at home in Scandinavia etc? After all it's not cold.

Berry-wise there was a fair crop of Rowan (nearly gone now) and Guelder Rose (now being noshed) a medium crop of Yew (where are the Mistle thrushes? They normally guard these trees very aggressively against other species) fairly good crop of hawthorn (going fast, partly birds, partly wind and rain I expect) a very heavy crop of holly (Birds don't seem to have started on it in earnest) and a rather meagre crop of ivy (that will be a problem especially for the wood pigeons and blackbirds if we get serious cold weather in late winter)

And are the Redwing and Fieldfare migrations pretty much done? I know they often suffer large mortality crossing the North Sea and get washed up in large numbers dead or exhausted where they fall prey to gulls along the North/East coasts.
This rotten weather must be making it hard, but maybe they're all over here by now and safely feeding.

QUESTIONS , QUESTIONS! ANY ANSWERS?

[thebeard]

happy today, saw a bird in my garden for the first time in AGES today - i live in a very urban area - a dunnock!!! hurray!

[nutmeg]

I don't often have a bird of the day to add here - but today I spent ages watching a sparrowhawk sitting doing very little on my garden fence. Rarely see one so close to the house (usually further down the garden) and certainly have never had one hang around for so long.

[pressld2]

Kestrels for me today. I drove up to Donna Nook for the seals with Neil (Ukwildlifeo) and we saw at least six, many of them hovering very close to the road and giving us great, if fleeting, views. Nearly trumped by the barn owl we saw on the way home. It was about 3:30 so still good light. I only caught a brief glimpse of it as I was driving but I think Neil had a better view. It was on his side of the car too.

Dave P.

[Ukwildlifeo]

Originally Posted by pressld2

Kestrels for me today. I drove up to Donna Nook for the seals with Neil (Ukwildlifeo) and we saw at least six, many of them hovering very close to the road and giving us great, if fleeting, views. Nearly trumped by the barn owl we saw on the way home. It was about 3:30 so still good light. I only caught a brief glimpse of it as I was driving but I think Neil had a better view. It was on his side of the car too.

Dave P.

I think the barn owl won it for me, though that close kestrel on the way was a close second.

[Jason Claxton]

A Raven today,also another Chiffchaff,stacks of Redwings and some Fieldfares

[Phoebe]

The sound, and then sight of a Bullfinch whilst walking the dogs, the annoying thing is it was in the trees on the lane I live but have never seen it visit my garden trees!

[Deer Stalker]

Originally Posted by Deer Stalker

Bramblings in the wind & rain on the New Forest this morning.

......& some more this afternoon.

[PMG]

........ for me was that great northern diver again I returned last week and took a friend and got a few shots but not what I really wanted and Ian didn't get any the first time round - so yesterday we set off again for Hollingworth despite the forecast ........

We drove around from front to back and back to front and perched on the kerb in sev places which caused annoyance with some of the 'fit' walkers who made it plain that photographers and birdwatchers are nothing but a nuisance.....

Finally back on the car park 5 hours later with the weather turning stormy we were about to leave for home when I saw it appear - among the yachts! It seemed to be making its way round then disappeared again ........ so off we drove again round by the tower and found it must have crossed the front of the car park underwater! Ian ran out and I went back to park yet again and by this time it was very busy, raining hard and blowin a hooley and still folks were walking round the lake

I joined Ian and ended up nipping/limping up and down following its progress between tower and car park as it fished - even when the yachts were being blown onto the side it came up inbetween them! Its a juvenile born this year and prob raised somewhere where it didn't see any people - so its not bothered by folks walking dogs, or birders or photographers or yachts! So eventually 6 hours later in storm and rain we left for home and it was still fishing within feet of the tarmac parade

[Davy Crockett]

Can't imagin PMG sprinting, jogging or nipping anywhere, but her greatest atribute is patience as you will have noticed in her photos all over WAB

Bird of the day for me, is a flock of about 60 Canada Geese that wake me up at first light every day, (where's that rifle)

[Bishopswood]

Fieldfares for me today, in trees at the edge of a city centre carpark in Wolverhampton. Good start to the day.

[blacknest]

Originally Posted by pressld2

Kestrels for me today. I drove up to Donna Nook for the seals with Neil (Ukwildlifeo) and we saw at least six, many of them hovering very close to the road and giving us great, if fleeting, views. Dave P.

I misread and overlooked the first sentence. I had visions of seals hovering over the road! Then I read it properly

For me a lot of pheasants in Hammer Wood , Chithurst W.Sussex including one all-dark green cock bird (I cannot tell if a melanistic one ,which is a mutation, or a "Japanese Green" which are bred from the "Kiji" subspecies from Japan) It was in company with a regular torquatus (Chinese ring-necked) type
And then an all-white cock too! That gave me quite a start as it ran out of cover just infront of me. I'm not sure if it's strictly albino as it still had the red head-sides

[Ukwildlifeo]

The flock of starlings that started flying about just before the rain only to wizz into a [i]leylandii[/I tree just before the rain got heavy - clever birds

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by blacknest

I misread and overlooked the first sentence. I had visions of seals hovering over the road! Then I read it properly

LOL! I did word it very sloppily so I don't blame you for misreading it the first time. My only excuse is that it was a long day...

Dave P.

[agrumpycow]

Two goldcrests in my garden! A garden first for me and only the second time I've seen one

[Davy Crockett]

I had two juv; moorhens strange they didn't look more then about six weeks old!

[Jason Claxton]

A Red Kite just 2 miles from my house today ,we dont get that many around here