Banded Pitta

This is my favourite pitta -  this young male seems to have unusually teamed up with the female Gurneys - none of the shots have been colour enhanced in photoshop this is actually how bright they are!

Spoon-billed Sandpipers and Gurney's Pitta

These two birds were top of our list to see in Thailand and thankfully we saw them both and in the case of the Spoon-bills we saw not one but five of these amazing little waders but boy did they take some finding in amongst hundreds of other stints and plovers - but when we found one the excitement was immense - surely the best wader in the world.
The Gurney's Pitta was incredibly difficult to see and without the use of our guide Yothin Meekaeo I feel it would have been impossible - we spent about an hour in the company of this stunning female pitta (no male seen) and she was also joined by an absolutely stunning male Banded Pitta who in my opinion knocked spots off all the pittas we saw.  In total we had 4 species of pitta: Gurney's, Banded, Blue and Eared - the Eared was incredible, it was almost dark and we were on our way out of the forest at Khao Yai NP when Wayne heard it call so he called back to it and within seconds it zoomed in and sat within 2 metres of us for what seemed an age but was probably 30 seconds - the light was catching its silver ears protruding behind its head - books do it no justice at all and we didn't dare move so no photos.

Return from Thailand

Well we're home and pleased to report we got all target birds and survived the leeches, mosquitoes and energy consuming humidity.  We just have to process a couple of thousand images now which could be a slow job as jet lag has set in big time but Spoon-billed Sandpiper and Gurney's Pitta images to follow shortly.  We managed to see 270 species in total which we were pleased with as we knew the forest birding would be especially slow at this time of year and made more so by having to pick the leeches off your bins first!  Apart from the heat and humidity Thailand was a joy - the Thais couldn't be more helpful and the infrastructure made this an easy country to bird independently.  Unusually for us we managed a non-birding day and spent a whole day minus bins in Bangkok and found that the cameras do take pictures of things other than nature so watch out for some pretty amazing architecture shots.  Despite eating at the doggiest road side stalls we had no stomach bugs and had some fabulous food.

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.

Digishots

More camera experimental shots taken through the scope - the Jackdaw is an interesting one as he has lots of white spotting down his front.

Eastern Crowned Warbler - South Shields

Great excitement in the UK over the last two days - a first record of an Eastern Crowned Warbler so it was  north we went this morning to be there for first light.  A couple of hundred were already there in position, all nervously wondering if it was still there and then a warbler flitted into view and yes ..... a Yellow Browed Warbler oh dear but all was not lost within seconds out came the star of the show.  As you can see from the shot of the crowd below we were a fair distance from the bird so the shots below of the bird were the best we could do - they are with the Nikon through the scope at 2000 iso! and yes there is a bird there just look in the centre of each pic.  This little bird has had great media coverage appearing in the national press, radio and even the BBC news this evening - I have to say that based on purely looks alone for me it wasn't as smart as the Yellow Browed but for sheer excitement and anticipation  it won hands down.