Category: Uncategorized
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Review – The Search For India’s Rarest Birds
I’ve written on this blog about the current shortage of good quality writing about UK birding and birders. In recent years I’ve broadened my search to other countries, starting with ‘Big Year’ accounts from the USA. I had read ‘The Living Air’ about Indian birding by Aasheesh Pittie, and through following his Facebook updates saw…
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Out Skerries – Review Of The Birding Year
Wood Warbler, September 2024 by Dave Bywater Highlights I’ve done this for a few years now and normally it begins with a list of several species recorded on Skerries a handful of times over the years. Prepare to be rather underwhelmed by this year’s version, unless one of the island residents sends me a picture…
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Safari Birds
As a birder a short a one day safari, whilst a tremendous thrill, left a bit of a dilemma at where to look. I’m not sure how many bird species I missed as we hared past them, though I am fairly sure we saw several different Bee-eaters and could only put a name on one.…
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Happy Birthday Jane
When we looked at the excursion options on our holiday the one we immediately discounted was flying to mainland Tanzania for a day safari. It was expensive, indulgent and not good for the planet. But then Jane decided we would never have an opportunity and wanted a birthday to remember, so we did. Being based…
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The Zanzibar ‘Local Patch’
Having walked north along the beach on our first full day we decided to go south the next day (9 August). The sandy tourist beach soon gave way to rocky and muddy terrain, and continuing our ineptitude of the day before Jane wasn’t really in the right footwear but we persisted. Even though we were…
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Zanzibar Day 2 -More Kingfisher Action
Jane wanted to go to one of the turtle sanctuaries as the focal point of the day. We set of with wifi to locate them, and then found the wifi was terrible. We made our way into the middle of Nungwi, and were stood in the middle of a roundabout looking like prize idiots. After…
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Zanzibar – Day 1
Striped Kingfisher We flew from Gatwick mid afternoon and changed in Dubai at 2.30 local time. Not knowing what to expect we were surprised to end up on a train / tram in the airport. Even when we got to the right place the bus transfer was fairly epic in very humid conditions. When we…
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Holiday Streaking
adult Egyptian Goose I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned eBird streaks in a blog before. Basically it’s doing some birding every day and putting some records on the eBird platform. I’ve kept a streak going for 700 days, just because I think birding every day is good for my wellbeing. But sometimes it’s a challenge…
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From The Archives
Olive-backed Pipit by Len Worthington, used under Wikipedia Creative Commons Licence A proper birding post on Natural Selection for a change, regarding an Olive-backed Pipit I found on Out Skerries in October 2022. So why am I going back to this now you may ask. The answer is an article in this month’s Birdwatch magazine.…
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Greenodd Gulls
Regular readers will know I like to check the gulls on the Leven Estuary at Greenodd for ringed gulls when passing on the A590. I was in South Cumbria yesterday taking a family member to a medical appointment and stopped on the way. I quickly picked up an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull – green N:76B.…
