Normanby’s Autumn Colours

The ‘colour’ season is underway now in Normanby Park – not quite at its’ best but getting there none the less.  A big influx of Redwings this week with a smattering of Siskins and Redpolls too – and Grey Heron down by the fishing lake this morning.  Also had a record count of 7 Bullfinches last week no-doubt northern birds pushed down.

Brazil–The Atlantic Forest

I have had a very nice comment posted to my blog today from a gentleman in Brazil  - nelsonsouzza@blogspot.com which got me thinking of a trip we made in 2005.  We wanted to visit the Atlantic Forest before it disappeared and to try to see some of the ‘specials’ of the birding world however I can’t post many photos as we for some inexplicable reason took tons of video and hardly any stills.  So an usual post for me – more letters than pixels!
We flew as usual Humberside to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Sao Paulo picked up a car and finally after driving around for nearly two hours found the way out of the city and headed for the most stunning coast line around Ubatuba and eventually found accommodation  overlooking the Atlantic (courtesy of the Lonely Planet guide – where would we be without them!).  We quickly picked up Frigate Bird, Black Vulture, Swallow Tailed Kite, Crested Caracaras and Tropical Kingbird from the hotel car park and thus the list had begun.
The next two days we birded Corcovado, Falha Seca and Fazenda Angelim where we had fabulous birds with equally fabulous names including Scaly Headed Parrot, Saw Billed Planato, Black Jacobin, Festive Coquet, Scaled Antbird, Buff-Throated Purpletuft etc… then on up the coast to Paraty for Black Headed Antwren.


Onwards again for a 5 night stay at one of the best birding hotels in the world Do Ype Hotel  in the National Park of Itatiaia – it was fantastic and has some of the best humming-bird feeders anywhere which also plays hosts to the best Woodpecker of all (to me) Yellow Fronted(if only I had a photo) plus Violaceous Euphonias, Blue Naped Chlorophonia, Magpie Tanager etc..Whilst there we also had a trip out to Agulhas Negras for two of our target birds – Plovercrest and Black and Gold Cotinga, both of which we saw.


Each night we were treated to an array of moths – some bigger than my hand – here is a selection, no idea what any of them are!




The view from our room..
We then headed for what turned out to be the highlight of the trip 3 nights at Regua at Guapiacu (pic below)http://www.regua.co.uk/index.html .  I would advise anyone with the slightest interest in conservation to go here and see what an amazing place one Englishman has managed to create – it is a magical place – visit the website.

As is usual on our holidays we are constantly on the move and it was very hard to leave Regua but our next target was in sight the Maned Wolves at Caracas National Park – to see the wolves you have to stay at a Monastery where one of the Jesuit Priests feeds the wolves each night – it is a once in a lifetime experience – words can’t describe it, you just have to go!


On the road again to Canastra for the endangered Brazilian Merganser which we saw very easily but with white water rafting companies setting up there can’t be too much hope for this species – we also spent two days at this site looking for Giant Anteaters which we didn’t see – the only dip of the holiday.
Last stop Intervales National Park where we finished our trip with again some excellent birds and headed off back to Sao Paulo for the airport only to be wiped off the 6 lane motorway by the most massive lorry imaginable – to cut a long story short we just caught the flight home after spending two hours with Portugese only speaking police talking to english only speaking tourists(us).  As we never heard another thing from the car rental co.(their car was wrecked) we  can only assume that the totally portugese statement we signed was an account from the lorry driver accepting full responsibility.  It didn’t ruin the holiday – Brazil is a fabulous country and I would go back like a shot but would never drive on Sao Paulo’s roads again!
Trip total 330 (all unguided)

A couple more from Neil - RBFlicker and Siskin

Red-Breasted Flycatcher at Donna Nook

One of thousands of Siskins which came in on to the East coast a couple of weeks ago.

I found a memory card and……

….found all these images on it that we have taken over the year but never done anything with so

Mandarin Duck taken at Bolton Abbey in the spring

Blue Tit in the depths of winter!

Female Goosander Bolton Abbey

Goosander pair

Nuthatch Bolton Abbey

  Coal Tit (very worn must have been feeding young)

   Moorhen in the Park

 Red Deer stag in the Park in June

  Fallow Deer

Red Deer Stag

Green Woodpecker bottom of our garden

Little Auks and Rutting Deer – must be autumn!

With a brisk North-Easterly wind yesterday it was off to the Humber Bridge to see if any sea birds would be blown off course from their journey down the east coast.  With a handful of Little Auks appearing on the pager Wayne was determined to find our own and after 3 or 4 hours of watching the Humber he finally picked up a Little Auk in the scope but no sooner had he picked it up did it land on the choppy water which made it impossible to locate.  However around 30 minutes later he picked up two Little Auks flying back East up the Humber – these were my first Little Auks on the Humber after 20+years of watching every November for these tiny sea birds – we haven’t checked the records yet but these are possibly the earliest records for Humber Little Auks.  Also at the Bridge was an adult Mediterranean Gull and both myself and a stunning Bittern had a surprise as I flushed it from no more than 10 metres from my feet on the edge of Pit 25 – and on the same pit 14 Goldeneye and a Pintail signified autumn is definitely here.
So to today a beautiful frosty sunny start with lots of winter thrushes in the Yew Tree at the bottom of the garden – 8 Redwings, 2 Redpolls, 3 Song Thrush, 2 Mistle Thrush and 6 Blackbirds with a Brambling flying overhead.  As it was also quite foggy we thought it would be a good day to try to get some better photos of the Red Deer rutting in the Park – things have moved on with up to 5 Stags now contending for top position and my friend with the damaged eye is also hanging on making himself heard – but most of the action today was taking place in the conifer plantation so unfortunately not good for photography as it is in deep shade however a few brave souls wandered into the sun light…….
This Little Auk is not one of our two – this one was found on the beach at Dungeness tonight by my brother down in Kent!





 

Spurn Point

A great day at Spurn yesterday – following easterly winds and high pressure over Scandinavia, Spurn was alive with thousands of birds – literally in their hundreds were; Siskins(running around our feet), Goldcrests, Song Thrushes, Redwings, Bramblings, Chiffchaffs, Robins – in their 10-20’s were Ring Ouzels, Redstarts and Pied Flycatchers and then there were the ‘rarities’ as shown below Great Grey Shrike and Red-Breasted Flycatcher not photo’d were Rustic and Little Bunting.

Red-Breasted Flycatcher

 

Redstart – one of many