Dartford Waffler

Independent Birding at Zaamin National Park | Birding in Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is a surprising country with a wide variety of landscapes, ancient historical monuments, some interesting food and drink as well as good infratructure that makes the country easy to travel in independently. However, my wife and I pushed this a little further than most travelers to the country by visiting Zaamin National Park where [...]

City Park Bird Abundance | Birding in Thailand

For those of us lucky enough to travel internationally to see birds it quickly becomes apparent that in some countries birds are abundant while in others birders have to work harder to see a wide range of species. This was brought home to me most recently spending a morning at Sri Nakorn Kuean Khan Park [...]

Touristing & Birding at Petra | Birding in Jordan

For those of us who travel with non-birding partners it can sometimes be tricky to balance enjoying time together somewhere interesting and the craving to maximise the opportunity to see new birds in new places. Personally, having a good holiday with my wife is the most important thing when planning trips together but doing some [...]

Rainy Season Birding at Pathum Thani Rice Research Centre | Birding in Thailand

There can be times of the year when bird watching hits a trough because a lack of activity, unhelpful weather or overfamiliarity with a smaller selection of species than at other times. In Thailand these factors are all true in the rainy season with a large number of species absent, on their breeding grounds further [...]

Mountain Birding from Chimgan | Birding in Uzbekistan

I have always loved immersing myself in mountain landscapes but over recent years my opportunity to do so has been limited with much of my time spent in tropical forests and wetlands in Thailand so when the opportunity presented itself to spend some time birding in mountain habitats in Uzbekistan I took it without having [...]

Some Curious Gulls at Dungeness | British Birding

September 25th, 2020

Nick

With strong winds from a promising direction at a promising time of the year I headed to Dungeness, on the south coast of England, in hope of seeing some interesting seabirds blown close to the coast. After a couple of hours of looking at a couple of distant Gannets, a pair of Common Scoters and some Sandwich Terns I got bored and decided to take a close look at the groups of gulls loafing around on the stony beach.

I know that a lot of people are intimidated by large gulls, particularly all of the subadult plumages but I have found that if you make the effort to look at them and take some photographs you can start to make sense of them bit by bit. One of the things that make gulls manageable, even for fairly inexperienced birders, is that they are usually very approachable, allowing observers to see them in detail and get some good photos to study further at home. At Dungeness I found a couple of the rarer UK gulls, identifying them at the time but only really being 100% confident when I examined the photos, as well as one bird that is still a little confusing even with photographs. What follows are my photographs from the day and some discussion on the identity of the birds. Read more »

Great Cormorant Colour Ring | British Birding

September 19th, 2020

Nick

Abberton Reservoir is a well-known birding site in the county of Essex, Southeast England, but one that I had never visited before last week. I had a really great time at this nice spot, with a very good selection of species and the two causeways across the reservoir were great spots to stand and photograph waterbirds in flight as they flew across from one part of the water body to another. In this way I got nice shots of a variety of species of ducks, Little and Great Egrets as well as numerous Great Cormorants. It wasn’t until I got home and looked at my photographs that I noticed that I had caught a Cormorant that had a colour ring on its left leg. The question was though, could I read the code on the ring so that I could report it? Read more »

A Walk along Caerfanell Brook, Brecon Beacons | British Birding

September 18th, 2020

Nick

The sound of the fast-flowing mountain stream known as Caerfanell Brook always takes me back to holidays with my family when I was a child. I remember sitting with our feet in the cool waters to relieve ourselves from the hot weather we experienced one year when a Dipper turned up right next to us! It was very exciting at the time as I had only ever seen a couple of Dippers before and certainly never one that close. Over the years we revisited many times and the walk along the stream towards a waterfall became one of our favourites, with every visit being rewarded with a view of Dipper.

Over the years I have made many walks along this stream and it is always one of the places I visit when I am back in UK at various times of the year and for over thirty years I have been visiting this tranquil spot, seeing Dippers every time. Earlier this year I made an overdue trip and enjoyed a lovely walk along the stream, seeing a nice variety of birds including Dippers, which I made a short video about. The following is a selection of photographs taken from my walk in early August 2020 with a map of the location towards the end of the post. Read more »

Aldenham Country Park & Reservoir | British Birding

September 3rd, 2020

Nick

Today I made a trip to Elstree, not to star in a movie at the famous film studios but to collect my camera from the Canon service centre where it was repaired and serviced after a semi-submerging in sea water at Shellness last week. Canon got my camera repaired and cleaned up in just one week and after collecting it I went to the nearby Aldenham Country Park & Reservoir to have a look around and test the camera out. The Country Park is a pleasant place, not huge but a nice mixture of a small reservoir, fringing woodland and pasture, interlaced with drainage ditches and a small stream; a nice rural setting. Given the location and habitat it wasn’t particularly likely that I would see anything unusual but I did see a nice variety of birds and get the chance to test my camera out although a pair of juvenile Shelducks this far inland was a surprise and a migrating Spotted Flycatcher was a nice sighting. Read more »

High Tide Wader Roost at Shellness | British Birding

August 30th, 2020

Nick

One of the most spectacular things in bird watching is seeing large numbers of birds together in the same place. When I am in UK there is one obvious place for me to head to in order to get a taste of this type of experience; the high tide roost at Shellness in North Kent. This location is part of a National Nature Reserve and consists of a shingle spit adjoining salt marsh and mud flats; a great place for viewing waders particularly as numbers start to build up at the end of August and into September. Recently I paid a visit to this location, less than an hour’s drive from my home town of Dartford, in rather grey and windy conditions that were not ideal for using a telescope or camera but by timing it right I was able to enjoy the spectacle of large numbers of waders flying past me at close range, to their high tide roost on the shingle ridge. The following are some of the better photos I got, despite the gloomy conditions, and you will notice that all the birds are flying from left to right as they head to the roost site. Read more »

Chelmarsh Reservoir | British Birding

August 20th, 2020

Nick

Recently I enjoyed spending some time in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a lovely area indeed with some nice birds in areas of ancient woodland and a few upland species on areas of heath. However, my time in the area didn’t give me any opportunity to see birds associated with wetland habitats so on my way back to Kent I stopped at Chelmarsh Reservoir to take a look at what this site had to offer. I made the effort to get there early, arriving a little before 7am to find a very pleasant spot consisting of a large area of open water surrounded by woodland and famland patches but the real area of interest was a reed bed and the shallows at one end of the reservoir, with nice patches of ancient oaks nearby. A small hide gave me the perfect place to just sit and watch, giving me nice selection of birds and the opportunity to photograph Water Rail. Read more »

Birding by the Beach at Pranburi | Thailand Birding

July 16th, 2020

Nick

Thailand is an excellent country for a bird watching trip with a wide variety and number of impressive species. However, many birders come to Thailand for a more touristic trip with their non-birding partners and most of these will spend at least some time at one of Thailand’s famous beaches. I recently spent a few days taking it easy at a low-key beach area in Pranburi and while I really appreciated taking life easy I also wanted to do a little bit of birding in the mornings and make a virtual bird watching video to show people how many species of birds can be found around a typical beach so long as you do not stay in one of the very heavily built up resorts such as Patong or Pattaya. I have written on this subject before – Birding When Not Birding – but I wanted to expand upon this theme in a video; as they say a picture is worth a thousand words I suggest that a video is worth a thousand pictures. Read more »