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December 25th
Here is what I’ve received for Christmas from family nature writing wise. I’m putting it on here to make sure that I read them all and do some kind of review in due course. If you’ve been checking in regularly you will know that I received Vagrancy In Birds early, and you can see a…
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Cliche Corner
It would be perverse to twitch a bird as rare and iconic as Belted Kingfisher is in Britain and blog on Christmas Eve about something else. It is also difficult to say anything that hasn’t already been said. So what follows is knowingly cliched. Twitching Gets You To New Places I’ve never been to Roach…
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North Pole And Twitcher Tantrums
I was dropping Jane off in North Shore at lunchtime so stopped at the go-kart track to try and get pictures of the two Purple Sandpipers that roost here with Turnstones. The waders were not playing ball, hanging out on the inaccessible track wall nearest the sea. I thought I could see one ‘Purp’ but…
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Vagrancy In Birds – A Review
My eldest daughter kindly bought me Vagrancy In Birds as a Christmas present. She is abroad over the festive period, so we exchanged and opened gifts at the weekend As I’ve opened it I’ve not stood on ceremony and read it, so Santa may disapprove but I can at least assure you this isn’t a…
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River Resident to Blackpool Breeding Bird – the interesting case of the roof nesting Grey Wagtails
Above is the view from where I park on East Topping Street in Blackpool on workdays. There are three of four bays which are arranged so that you are unlikely to get hit by stray car doors, and there’s the bonus of this fantastic street art. Quite often there’s also the sharp call of a…
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Out Skerries – 2021 In Review
I’m not normally a big fan of annual reviews before Auld Lang Syne has been sung. There’s no birding being done on Skerries though so it seems pretty safe to say stumps have been drawn. If any of the residents turn up a Bittern or Glossy Ibis on the burn in the next few days…
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Geese – Full Colour And Monochrome
I wasn’t expecting to blog about today’s birding simply because I wasn’t expecting to do any birding today given other commitments. But on our way between staging a junior parkrun and Afternoon Tea at Morecambe’s Midland Hotel I spied geese by the A586. Jane was kind enough to let me pull in at Larbreck Gardens…
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Patch Profile – Kincraig Lake
Kincraig Lake is a body of water in the middle of a Council housing estate in Blackpool. If you were driving past you probably wouldn’t even know it was there, and it isn’t particularly well watched. But I watch it more than most and over the years I have had some memorable moments. Whilst it…
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Danes On The Docks
Preston Dock is a popular place for people to take in the views across the water whilst eating their fast food. Gulls with similar tastes loiter during the day, before their numbers are swelled by others coming in to roost or bathe pre-roost. Over the years many Black-headed Gulls have been caught by hand and…
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Book Review – Confessions Of A Scilly Birdman
On nature writing courses I attended earlier in the year I was told it was good practice to review the efforts of other authors. Light hearted tomes from 1985 may be an unorthodox place to start book reviews on this blog but I’ve just read David Hunt’s autobiography so here goes. The titles of each…
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