Feb 29 2012 - clouds (well birds anyway) across the moon

Arriving back home from Chicago, geese calling high overhead attracted Chrystal and I to a skein of 75 or so Snow Geese heading north directly in front of the crecent moon

Feb 5 2012- Moscow

A short walk up the road and through the snowed up park found a few birds and a couple of surprises. Amongst the house sparrows were a number of tree sparrow. The former looking very dingy and grimy, the latter looking smart and dapper so it can't be soiling, maybe there a darker sub species of passer domesticus here. A couple of Blue Tit looked 'normal' but the great tit looked grubby too. A single fieldfare fed on some tree fruit and looked a little odd by itself (I'd seen a couple of large-thrush flocks from my window which were also probably this species).
It's still a little strange seeing Hooded Crow dossing around and relatively tame (as opposed to Scotland's wild and distant birds) but there were a number around the park. High over Moscow City a Hoodie was watched aggressively mobbing an Accipiter of approximately equal size.
A small flock of mallard take advantage of the ice breaking operation on the river

Feb 4 2012 - Moscow (yes THAT Moscow!)

Despite being -20c (or maybe because..) there was a flock of hooded crow and jackdaw around the airport car park and a few hoodies along the route into town. I also picked up house sparrow and FRPD and over the city centre a Peregrine. Weather doesn't look great for a lot of outside time so we'll see how much else can be added.

December 25 2011 some uk birds

Green Woodpecker in dad's garden
Also Jay and 2nd buzzard in 20 odd years

Ring-necked Parakeets over Hendon's football match at dusk

Kestrel all over the place :)

Jan 14 2013. Riverbend wildfowl walk - lite

With the recent rain, the river was in full glow and the wildfowl well dispersed. However chrystal and I had a good group of 7 and we walked downstream. Conn Island didn't produce it's usual duck but the pair of Bald eagle perched nicely. At various points on the river we had 100 or so Ring-necked, Buffleheads, Common Mergansers and a few Coot. Before and after the walk we had single black duck and finally found 3 female and 2 1st-w male lesser scaup before we came away.

Jan 8 2012

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The grebe getting shy


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The coot getting used to being around people!

Jan 7 2012 field trials for Chrystal's new scope!

A trip to the patch to try out Chrystal's new scope and take some fresh air found an American Coot with a Pied-billed Grebe in the reception pool area and then we nearly overlooked the imm. Night Heron (BC!) under the green heron tree.

We were quite late so it was a little quiet although a nice Winter Wren skulked around Pooh Bridge and later we watched a juv Red-tailed Hawk on the gravel in the area (from our vantage point up stream on Rusty Bridge). A few moments earlier an American Crow was mobbing an Adult Red-tail as it circled nearby.


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Nov 12 2011 - where did they go?

Good day at Chincoteague from sunrise to sunset
The sea was quiet to start with but later had a good procession of ducks (Black Scoter and teal mainly, what no surf scoter?!?) and good numbers of Gannet. several flock of Snow Gees over were the only ones seen (later they were absent form the pool). Several parties of Bonaparte's Gull were watched.
Several small parties of dolphin breached conveniently.
Hundreds of YR Warbler everywhere plus at least 1 Palm.
The flock of Dunlin included a couple with some remaining dark belly feathers
A rather nasty black duck x mallard hybrid swam nearby
The only white birds on the wildlife loop were Tundra Swan including a couple showing small areas of yellow at the bill base
A 2nd yr (?) male Harrier hunted the marsh and gave great views and 3 1st w white ibis were with the egrets in the marsh
Goof numbers of teal, wigeon, pintail and shoveler were periodically spooked by the harrier and the local eagle

Nov 5 2011 - migrants thru Occie

A good selection of migrants and others today.

A Hermit Thrush and Thrasher joined some Robins and Rusty Blackbirds found amongst the Blackbirds

Out in the bay a nice total of Eleven Horned Grebe were counted and seven Pied-Billed Grebe, the first Shoveler and Bufflehead and a late 1st w Parula.

23 oct 2011 - palmies

At Occoquan today I found an incredible number of Eastern Palm Warblers (c200)...

Sept 16 2011 - one extreme to another, a day in the Rockies

Apart from some good birds, it was great to get right up close and personal with the continental divide at 10000 ft and then back down to 'normality' at half that at Barr Lake near the airport. In the mountains waves of showers drifted through but once we were down on the plain the big sky had a couple of foreboding thunderstorms that thankfully circled us but made for some impressive skyscapes.
Nice birds today. Up in the mountains the very best must have been the Gray Jay that eventually gave up being elusive and came and sat in the tree above us. It took a little while but we eventually came across feeding parked of chickadees and kinglets and white-crowned sparrows were particularly numerous and showy.

Nov 4 2011 - crow time again

Flocks of crows flying away from roost before dawn over the bar side dinner. From calls all seemed to be American crow

Returning from the cinema last night around 9 (well after dark ) at least one American crow was heard flying over home

Sep 9 2011 - out in the desert

A trip to Arizona for a wedding and some birding. We found a great place at Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch, so we went back again the next day !
Lots of Abert's Towhee around, a local speciality and a very large number of Yellow Warblers during Friday afternoon. Many fewer the next day but we did find a Wilson's. We were excited to ID a MacGillivray's Warbler and saw a few others on both day. Just occasionally I thought I had found a Geothlypis warbler with a complete eye ring but didn't get much more on it than that.



We did find a big group of 50 long-billed dowitcher and some interesting duck including a cinnamon teal

On the Sunday morning we headed an hour east out of town way out into the Sonoran Desert to the Boyce Thompson arboretum, a wonderfully verdant area around a creek surrounded by harsher terrain.
Cactus Wren was a great bird and came within a few feet. Lots of flycatchers and vireos on the trees along the (dry) stream bed.
At both sites Gila Woodpeckers were plentiful and noisy!

Sep 4 2011 - the patch

Initially pretty quiet on our walk from the rail bridge over the river to Rusty Bridge. We did find a perched hummingbird across the tracks and walking back passed the dog park we happened across a feeding party. Not much variety but 4+ Blackburnian with the redstarts and the vireos more than made up for that!






Cameron Stn, Ben Brenman Park with Chrystal, Alexandria, US-VA
Sep 4, 2011 8:15 AM - 9:30 AM
Protocol: Traveling
0.5 mile(s)
28 species (+1 other taxa)

Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) 4
Green Heron (Butorides virescens) 1
Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) 1
Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) 2
Rock Pigeon (Columba livia) 75
Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) 30
Chimney Swift (Chaetura pelagica) 5
Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) 1
Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) 2
Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) 6
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) 1
Red-eyed Vireo (Vireo olivaceus) 3
Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) 3
Fish Crow (Corvus ossifragus) 5
crow sp. (Corvus sp. (crow sp.)) 5
Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) 2
White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) 3
Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) 2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea) 1
American Robin (Turdus migratorius) 15
Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) 15
Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) 15
Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) 12
American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla) 2
Blackburnian Warbler (Setophaga fusca) 4
Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) 1
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) 15
Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) 6
American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) 2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2 (http://ebird.org)

Sep 1 2011- Kildeer meaning business

An odd sighting walking back from the customer offices to my hotel here in te outskirts of Denver - 10 kildeer running around on the well manicured lawns of the building next door.

AUg 21 2011 a warm summer day at the patch

Aug 28 2011 after the wind...

A quick trip to Dyke Marsh after the hurricane.

Found 9 Black Tern amongst the large numbers Forster's, Royal, Caspian with a couple of Common Tern and a couple of 1st winter Least Tern.

Along the shore of the marina a collection of birds feeding (many insects were around on various branches and limbs)

good morning :)

August 11th back in uk

Hobby over m25
Rook and magpie

Sparrowhawk over motorway looking chunky



Off deck at lodging- 10+ coal tits Inc juvs plus treecreeper (froze after playing crest calls) nuthatch and goldcrests



red crossbill Calling and seen in flight




Woodpigeon feeding from the pancake house feeding station

July 3 2011 allegany mountains

Brief visit to the area including a quick foray in West Virginia. There were a few Bobolink seen in a very rural and remote area. Around the b and b both Barn and Cliff Swallows seemed to be nesting

June 23rd - green heron 'colony'

A quick walk around the lake at the patch. At least 7 Green Heron flying to, from and hanging around the reception pool. At least one large chick in the usual nesting tree