Natural Selection

I do a monthly article on local wildlife on the Blackpool Social Club website. In case anyone who reads this blog didn’t know I’ve linked them below whilst being too busy to do much on here. December https://www.blackpoolsocial.club/43205-december-almanac-waxwings-and-starlings/ November https://www.blackpoolsocial.club/42098-november-almanac-bittern-sweet/ October https://www.blackpoolsocial.club/41339-october-almanac-swans-about/ September https://www.blackpoolsocial.club/40269-september-almanac-autumn-avian-migration-on-the-fylde-coast/ August https://www.blackpoolsocial.club/39672-august-almanac-birds-butterflies-and-foxes/ July https://www.blackpoolsocial.club/39164-july-almanac-a-birds-eye-view-on-nature/ June https://www.blackpoolsocial.club/38501-june-almanac-dolphins-and-dragons/ The header picture is from…

Trying to find interesting birds and wildlife can lead to being trigger happy, and jumping to the wrong conclusion. But sometimes the opposite applies, and you can sleepwalk into missing or almost missing something. This blog is about an example of the latter this morning. As I’ve probably said before on here I don’t get…

Yesterday was a salutary lesson in always being tuned in to the nature around you. I had no space in the diary to go birding but made the best of the walk from the works car park to the office. It was a glorious day so it was surprisingly productive. There were several Robins ticking…

The Anthem Of The Seas docked at Cape Liberty. The picture above was taken from our cabin after docking. As the light improved there were a few Ring-billed and American Herring Gulls and Double-Crested Cormorants, and a very distant group of 400 birds that zoomed photographs showed to be Brants (aka Brent Geese). Following the…

I wasn’t expecting a lot from the journey between Nova Scotia and New York. Whilst I was in the final spin class of the cruise there were however lots of birds viewable from my bike. These clearly included a lot of large shearwaters and American Herring Gulls. When I was back on the balcony with…

Greater Yellowlegs When I found out the two days in Bermuda had become one day in Nova Scotia I reached out to the Nova Scotia Bird Club on Facebook. Tony (I never found out his surname) a British expat was very helpful and put me in contact with Dominic Cormier as a local guide who…

To be blunt it was tough going again this morning. I thought I could hear the pipit onboard still, but only saw it (or maybe another) late afternoon to eliminate squeaky door as a possibility. Otherwise four hours of watching produced two Leach’s Petrel together. After some downtime early afternoon Jane and I were walking…

Well that one is. The ones that follow aren’t. After the spin class at 8am and breakfast in the restaurant, both overlooking the sea, there was no sign of yesterday’s Peregrines. Or indeed come to that any birds at all. I was beginning to regret joking to Jane that we were guaranteed a bird on…

Well done to Jane on finding the bird of the day, a petrel of one flavour or another. If that sounds a bit vague to be bird of the day, then I’ve not been clear and it was the only bird of the day. We did have a couple of encounters with whales. The first…

I didn’t blog yesterday as I only saw three birds – a brief shearwater and a couple of Leach’s Petrels. There’s only so much you can say about that really. You have your pre-conceived ideas of large sea birds arcing over the deep ocean, and eventually you dig out two birds barely bigger than sparrows…