My World Of Wildlife

Starting off at Pagham Harbour Nature Reserve, we walked to the Ferry Pool hide, which had a single Black-Tailed Godwit and a couple of juvenile Shelduck. We then decided to drive to the Church Norton car park. Looking over the mudflats there were quite a number of Oystercatcher, Dunlin and also a few more Black-Tailed Godwit. Walking to the severals, an area of scrub that is parallel to the sea, a female Sparrowhawk flew towards me, gliding as it went past. The previous weekend there had been a Wryneck showing well there, but other than a female Blackbird and around 3 buzzards circling there wasn't much else. Record shot of a Sparrowhawk Walking back towards the mudflats, I spotted a small group of Grey Plover, some still in breeding plumage. There were also some Ringed Plover, Redshank and some more Dunlin. Record shot of a Grey Plover in breeding plumage I then walked around the mudflats, getting closer views of the Grey Plover and Ringed Plover. 4 Wheatear we...

Yesterday morning I was up early again to do some ringing at Knepp Estate. After walking down to the site, to the sound of calling Tawny Owls, we set the nets up, 3 in fact. One was ideal for Linnets and hopefully one or two Swallows as part of the net was in an open field and there were already some feeding high in the sky. After the nets were set up we did the first net round. I extracted (took out the net) Whitethroat, Blue Tit, Chiffchaff and Blackcap.  Once I had ringed the birds, suddenly the sky was full of House Martins and Swallow. Hoping a few would go in the net, we quickly changed the tape. And they certainly did! Swarming around the net, we waited in anticipation as some of them perched on the top net shelf. After 5 minutes we did another net round and it was my job to extract all of the birds in that net. It was full of Swallow and House Martin as well as a Blackbird and Chiffchaff. Finally after extracting them all I headed back, my arm heavy with bird bags. ...