The Big Twitch

Well todays the day we go on the biggest twitch of our lives - yes in one hours time were heading off for Manchester airport to catch a flight to Thailand to see(hopefully or my life won't be worth living!) Spoon-billed Sandpiper.  As there are probably only a few hundred pairs left in the world we thought we ought to go and see them(2!) in their wintering ground before they are no more.  So three weeks in Thailand hopefully should do it but we plan to travel round a fair bit and catch up with another critically endangered bird although they have just found a few thousand in Myanmar and that is Gurney's Pitta.  As usual our luggage allowance is taken up with optical equipment so should have plenty of photos to post on our return hopefully there will be a stunning shot of a Spoon-billed Sandpiper.  If we get wi-fi any where I'll try to keep the blog updated so watch this space.

Firecrest

Big excitement this morning - a new garden bird tick in the form of a lovely little Firecrest - its hard to photograph though as it doesn't keep still for a second!

Alkborough Flats - a spectacular morning

We arrived down on the flats this morning at about 8.00 am and the light was superb - the weather was  cold but sunny and the birds were everywhere.  A very very rough guess put the numbers of birds at about 8000 - 5000 of these being Golden Plover, 2000 Lapwing and the rest Black Tailed Godwits, Teal, Dunlin and other duck.  The Plovers were so skittish they never landed for more than a minute a time and each time they got up the noise and patterns they made were quite spectacular - intermittently the "show" was interrupted with 4 Whooper Swans, 2 Kingfishers, 2 very obliging Snipe and a couple of Marsh Harriers.  After an hour the sun went, the wind picked up and the rain came down - you can see the change in light on the following photos - I think the Nikon may have been a good choice!

A little test - Canon 100-400mm or Nikon P6000?

The photos below were all taken at Alkborough Flats this morning - they are 2 male Stonechats, a group of Lapwing(can you spot the Ruff), a female Stonechat, Grey Wagtail(taken through a wire fence) and a Bullfinch. Double click on images for a better view and I would really be interested to know which kit you think took these pics.

Autumn leaves still falling in Normanby Park

Finally got out this morning having spent days in with a cold ridden husband! the leaves are stilling falling although our own flowering cherry tree hasn't even begun to change colour so a while to go yet.  The only notable bird activity has been a wonderful Woodcock who flew through the garden on Saturday morning - we think it was probably flushed by the shooters up at Little Normanby - it headed straight for the park.