Levels-birder

August 20th 2008

Temporary break: My next diary entry will not be before early September, after my return from a birding trip to South Africa's Western Cape Province.

 

August 17th 2008

What with two of our grandchildren staying with us and the wet summer, I’ve not been out birding very much since my last dairy entry. The few occasions have taken me to Meare Heath, at Shapwick Heath NNR, where the drained pool has attracted a few different waders. The least common was an adult Little Stint (new for my year list), and there were 30 Snipe, 9 Black tailed Godwits, 18 Redshank, 5 Green Sandpipers, 2 Ringed Plovers, and single Greenshank, Ruff and Dunlin. 2 Water Rails (adult and juvenile) were good to see, as were 3 Hobbies and a juvenile Marsh Harrier. Because of the bad weather, this year has been a poor one for most butterflies so I was happy to get these photos of a Peacock and a Small Skipper on a rare day when the sun shone for just a few hours.

 

 

I also came across four, recently fledged Sedge Warblers (presumably from a second brood) being fed by both parents, and took these photos of one of the youngsters.

 

 

 

August 8th 2008

Today I made a second attempt this year (unsuccessful as it turned out) to see a Balearic Shearwater at Portland Bill. A seawatch with my friends Peter and Pauline only turned up 3 Manx Shearwaters, 11 Common Scoters and 15 Common Terns, plus the more usual seabirds. Whilst at the Bill we also saw 3 Wheatears and a Peregrine – one of four seen by us this day. Later, in the afternoon, the second part of our day-trip was much better when we had good, prolonged views of this female Lesser Grey Shrike on Hartland Moor, near Wareham in Dorset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The shrike has been present here for about a week now. We were told to look for it in and around a field with a yellow ditch-digger in it but we didn’t expect to find it using this very same digger as a vantage perch, from which it made frequent insect-catching sallies!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the purists among us: perhaps perched here in a more traditional setting. I refrained from moving too close, staying about 50 metres away so as not to disturb it.

 

On a purely personal note: my first sighting of a Lesser Grey Shrike was almost 51 years ago, when I saw one at Perryoaks Sewage Farm near Heathrow Airport on October 6th 1957.

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 3rd 2008

 

Thanks to being alerted by Roger Musgrove, I took these photos of a recently fledged juvenile Cattle Egret this morning, it was with a pair of adults that were undoubtedly its parents. This is the second pair of Cattle Egrets to have sucessfully bred in Somerset this year.