Avian Love

Belated post from Tuesday due to inexplicable laptop issues. Read on at your own risk!

So today is that day. You know. The one enforcing our commercial calender sitting nicely between Christmas, Mother's Day and Easter. Anyway regardless of the obligitory consumerism today is about love how and wherever you can get it! So with this in mind I spent brief periods of freedom in my 12 hour day out in the sun and checking the local talent two time. Avian talent that is.

The 'usual rounds' mid-work produced the Blue-winged Teal slagging it up on the scrape while a Cormorant's eternal battle with a monster Eel provided entertainment as it caught, dropped, caught, dropped (to infinity) the long slippery nugget.

Having steadied myself post 'Eel madness' the remainder of the stroll produced Kestrel, Black Redstart and Rock Pipit along with a Chiffchaff getting rare in the dune scrub.

And some more pics from recent days:

Mixed Nuts

If the weather was nuts (which in a manner of speaking it is) then I'd have a full-on smorgasbord brimming with every conceivable shape, size and flavour. It’s been cold, warm, still, windy, rainy, sunny, cloudy, humid, dry and everything in-between, in near infinite combinations.


The birding has followed suit really with a few birds clearly suffering at times from the sudden cold snap while marked increases in waders like Ringed, Sanderling and Dunlin are clearly linked with the harsher mainland conditions.

A rare sight...Lower Moors frozen.

And some Teal at the same spot when it was alittle warmer (look at the cock!)

But from here on in it'll be megapics negligible words. Tired brain.

On wednesday, the coldest day last week these 2 Chiffchaff were clearly having trouble as were driven to feeding on short grass at '0 feet'. The paler one was pretty fit.

The cold also made this lovely sooty Black Redstart fairly obliging.

Had a look at the Dusky Warbler up at Harrys Walls which showed well but once again not for my camera....(top left of pic).

Spot the Dusky Warbler..answers on a postcard.

Another slightly easier spot the Dusky...

Common but sick. Orange honking thrush (Blackbird).

This single Dunlin was wonky sleeping down at Porthellick, cold snap relic.

Moths kicking off! Winter Moth remaining ironically still.

Conitinuing the mothy theme here's one of several interesting holes I found down Lower Moors whilst roaming amongst the sallow carr. Now to me they looked good for Lunar Hornet Moth exuvae but they seemed quite old and could be some mental beetle.







You know what they say about Geese with short necks...Pink-feet.

Hello again. Hope you're well and surviving, keeping busy or at the very least breathing whilst rejecting reality in front of a bright screen. The usual excuses apply for the lack of blog related media, busy blah blah. Anyway despite being probably the quietest end of the year here some nice bouts of sunny/still/warm weather have made looking at stuff for the 20th time pretty pleasant.

Lower Moors bigging itself up in the sun.

And why shouldn't it? When you can get super Anas combo's like this (Blue-winged Teal and Gadwall)

Spot the Iceland Gull...

There it is!

A fairly substantial bike driven bird today saw the Iceland Gull still mooching round Hugh Town while a wander around Porthellick produced more Anas action (in the form of Mallard, Gadwall and Teal) and some lovely views of this tchooing beauty...

That's right, Siberian Chiffchaff..not that you can tell with these pics anyway. It fed down to 4ft giving its distinctive tchoo call frequently but was far to active for anything better than silhouettes.

Further round the coast the 2 Pink-footed Geese were totally freaking out in the fields below Carn Vean. So wary! And I was miles away and partially hidden ish.

Little Egrets are still getting their intertidal zone on in many of the small bays.





 

And don't be thinking that birds are the only way to get your mid-winter grip on. Oooh no. The traps have been sporadically productive, generally correlated with the weather (unsurprisingly) and so I decided to point my lens at their thoraxes.



Pearly Underwing

Early Thorn

Silver Y

White-speck

Acleris hastiana

These Bermuda Buttercups are flowering all over the shop, hopefully the forecast cold weather over the proceeding days won't screw their lovely sour flowers over.

Stone-crop I think...even the fleshy plants are putting out new growth.

And finally just 'cos its nice...Fern sp. and the harbour

Winter Sun

What a day! Every day is awesom but today the sun once again smiled upon these isles allowing some stuff to be seen. Not much time to construct a long-winded tangent about how the refractive qualities of water, when combined with intense sunshine and low wind speeds, allow great seaduck watching...oh wait.

Anyway the highlighs from today were 6 Great Northern Diver, 3 Slavonian Grebe, 8 Brent, 2 Scaup, 2 Eider and 2 Long-tailed Duck plus the dark 1st winter Iceland was hanging out with the yobs down the dump.

Meanwhile all this winter dullness of late (discluding todays beautiful conditions) inspired my to photograph some of the bits flowering around the garden at the minute:

Will add their names when I have time later...exotica versus natives.

Finally there's not been much going down on the moth front, certainly due to very low tmeperatures and a brist SE wind. But here's an Acleris hastiana, a neast little tortrix that loves the winter.

And some bird pics...

Robin..duh!

Chaffinch.

Iceberg Seagull

See you on the flipside.