Natural Selection

This blog has an identity crisis. It’s very rarely a photo-essay, but today it is. I hope some readers will find something of interest in it. This morning in the Ribeiro Salgado there was at least one Purple Heron, and a Grey Heron. I got a few pics so here they are. Purple heron above,…

There’s plenty of reasons to be cheerful on a sunny island off Madeira. But looked at objectively the birding involves relatively few species. If I was to have been asked what my target would be, I think I’d have said ideally a good bird from the east and a good ‘un from the west. That’s…

Hoopoe and Junior today Technically I’m not in Madeira, I’m back on Porto Santo where I spent a week last autumn. I came here with Jane then, but she can’t get the leave so this time I’m on my own. Someone decided to teach me a lesson for coming away on my tod as there…

I was in Barrow on a hospital visit when I saw the above Lesser Black-backed Gull as I stopped for fuel. It has a crossbow bolt through its neck. I grabbed a few shots, but the bird rather understandably didn’t allow close approach. It appears to have other bolts / bolt wounds as well, but…

I’ve been meaning to post about seeing dolphins a week last Friday but life has been getting in the way. In the meantime I’ve managed to completely miss a spectacular passage of Little Gulls through the area. But I don’t care, I’ve seen dolphins off Blackpool Prom and that always works for me. It was…

I’m not doing myself any favours today with my choice of topic. I’ve watched an Osprey catching a fish at close range only a handful of miles from my childhood home, something I’ve meant to get round to since they colonised south west Cumbria. I’ve also been mesmerised by swarms of Sand Martins appearing over…

Today’s birding consisted of a Lancaster Breeding Atlas tetrad. I was doing SD45L, which is the area shown in the map below. Note the word ‘airfield’. This is the Black Knights parachuting facility, and they were doing a roaring trade enabling people to jump out of their light aircraft today. The birds, in addition to…

Pied Flycatcher by Steve Garvie used under Wikipedia Commons licence Last year I wrote a post called ‘Searching For Itinerant Vicars’ in which I explained that Ring Ousels were a bogey bird for me on the Fylde. Since then I’ve found one on Porto Santo where they are rare and seen a couple on Out…

In the time I’ve been doing this blog I’ve only seen two new birds for me in my home town before today. One of those was bittersweet, as the Pallid Swift last November from my office didn’t linger for clinching photographs needed for acceptance. The Red-footed Falcon at Marton Mere was much more straightforward. Fortunately…

Like a lot of people I find daily time with nature beneficial to my mental wellbeing. Today I was at work for eleven hours as we had a board meeting this evening, but with the clocks going forward it was still light when I left at seven. I decided to nip to the nearest place…