Mexico via Greenland!

We booked flights with Thomas Cook direct from Manchester, surprisingly cheaper than any other airline.  The Captain announced almost immediately that due to strong winds we wouldnt be going straight across the Atlantic but flying over Iceland and then the southern edge of Greenland - luckilly it was a daytime flight with no cloud which gave us stunning views whilst flying over Greenland.  To give an idea of the scale these images were taken at 19000 meters elevation, which suggests these are whopping great mountains and glaciers.

The Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

This blog has been a little short on posts the last few months but over the next few days all will change as we start uploading the best of 5000+ images and videos we have taken over the past 2 weeks during our trip to the Yucatan Peninsula in Southern Mexico.  We have birded our way covering around 3000km starting in Cancun where we picked up our car from Easyway and then took the following route; Playa del Carmen to Cozumel to Coba to Felipe Carrillo Puerto to Calakmul to Santa Elena/Uxmal to Rio Lagartos to Tulum.  Accommodation was picked up on route and varied in quality and price and ranged from ridiculously cheap to ridiculously expensive.  Wayne is writing a full trip report and a link will be posted when finished.  A total of 228 species of birds were seen and here’s the first video to get things started, a fabulous forest bird the Mexican Antthrush.

Click link for video http://youtu.be/bt-5WiSz1xw

Hawfinch

Connected with a few stunning Hawfinch over the weekend, a species which is becoming very scarce these days.

Nice views of a local Stonechat

Great Northern Diver

We went to see a nearby Great Northern Diver on a small lake but it never came that close but always a nice bird to see.

Click on the link below to see video footage of this bird

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frhAZKpscUU&feature=youtube_gdata

Kites, Waxwings & more

A little drive around the local area in bright sunshine and light winds was very pleasant and rewarding, just wished we had more days like this.

 Blackbird

 Fieldfare

 Red Kites

 Redwing

 Starling

 Waxwing

 Wigeon

Blyth's Pipit

Finally got the chance to make a visit to Pugney's Country Park to see the overwintering Blyth's Pipit.  The weather was perfect with no wind and good lighting with the bird showing well at times but was very active making it a little challenging digiscoping.

At one point the bird had a very close shave with a Kestrel.  The Blyth's was feeding in long grass out of view when a Kestrel swooped down on it missing it by millimetres.  The Blyth's flew up just iin time and landed in a nearby tree calling.

Little Bustard

What a start to 2015, news broke of this Little Bustard on New Years Eve but due to work commitments we couldn't make it.  So it was an early start to the New Year in hope that the bird would still be there.  After a longish walk to get to the field where the crowds had gathered and what seemed an even longer agonising time to try and pick the bird up (it was surprisingly difficult to pick out in the short crop) it was eventually seen reasonably well in the trying weather conditions.

It was blowing a gale with poor light conditions and the bird was keeping low, the usual excuses for the poor quality photos, but a stunning bird all the same.