Natural Selection

An early start saw an increase in thrushes around Rocklea. The place wasn’t carpeted with them, but there were definitely birds new in. Unfortunately for this blog and fortunately for the birds they were quite lively, having presumably not travelled that far before this landing. When there are thrushes in the geos (i.e. cliffs) can […]

The new ‘Golden Retriever’ weather vane at Rocklea showed the winds coming from the south east as forecast. Whilst the ‘fetch’ on these may not have been that great it always augurs well for a day’s birding on here. There were a few thrushes dotted about. These mostly comprised Blackbirds and Redwings, with a few […]

After I booked the flights for my autumn birding trip to Skerries the inter-island ferry timetable unexpectedly changed. The upshot was I had a day to kill, and as there had been a King Eider at Scalloway I decided to go there. I’ve only visited Scalloway, the ancient capital of Shetland, very briefly in the […]

Jane and I walked up to the golf club from the hotel this afternoon, and sat with cold beers watching the wildlife around the pools. Well first we saw the Hummingbird Hawkmoth above in the car park, perhaps the one that’s been there most of the week. There certainly had been some new arrivals though […]

You can’t go far wrong as a birder being next to a lighthouse in mid October. When I wanted to make the short trip to the Ilheu de Cima just off the south east of the main island I had fanciful ideas of seeing a few migrants. Before we set off I genuinely wondered if […]

It wasn’t a very auspicious start to this morning’s birding walk when I left the hotel without binoculars. I’d returned and set out again when a flock of Rock Sparrows tempted me to get my camera out and realise there was no memory card in it. Jane who’d noticed rang and offered to fetch it […]

I don’t know if it was the start of the hunting season today, but it certainly stepped up a pace. The hillsides on the way up to the golf course were littered with men and dogs taking partridges and rabbits so I made sure I didn’t wander off the road. There was a good showing […]

Given passerine migration isn’t really happening I wasn’t sure if I would have any additions to the trip list today. Approaching the golf course a Grey Heron flew overheard so that was soon sorted. I saw it again near the Ribeira Salgado and finally by another ribeira near town, assuming it was the same one. […]

Having visited Porto Santo Golf yesterday the birding priority was to visit Tanque Pond. This is the only other substantial freshwater on the island. As you can see it’s a lot less substantial at the moment than it can be. It has been one of the foremost sites for migratory birds on the Madeiran archipelago […]

An early start from Manchester meant I had the afternoon to get some initial birding in. I went to the golf course as it seemed a good way to get some species under the belt. So it proved with wildfowl, waders and some of the resident landbirds. There were so many Coot that when I […]