Early spring on RSPB Ham Wall in Somerset

THE warm weather has kick started spring with amphibians, reptiles and insects appearing at last, and resident birds singing:

toads

brimstone

comma

roe deer

great crested grebes

slow worm

toad

Final Levels visit for 2017

A beautiful, cold and clear day meant only one thing - a visit to he Levels was in order;  nothing new to see today but the sheer number of birds and the closeness of the superstars made it a good one - egrets, marsh harriers, wintering ducks and bitterns were the highlights:

Starlings

ON a cold windy Sunday a few weeks ago I popped down to Ham Wall to view the spectacle of the starlings.  The numbers are high (and will get higher) and with the sunset it was a great experience.

What's that bird?

Seen on King Sedge Moor, Somerset in the distance amongst plovers - is it a sandpiper (the top right bird)?

Beardie heaven

OUR plan for the day was to start by hunting out the bearded tits (reedlings) and then go from there.  

We were excited to hear four fly high overhead as soon as we stepped onto the Somerset reserve, but they were going the other way and we were informed by a helpful couple of birders that they had just been showing for an hour and were very close up...

So with our expectations dashed, we were surprised and delighted to see a number of individuals still pecking up the shells on the boardwalk, as hoped, and eventually we saw three pairs altogether.

Over the day we found beardies at three totally separate and distinct locations on our travels around Westhay SWT and Wall Hall RSPB reserves.

I had to get down very low to capture these beauties as I wanted, but it was worth it.

 

 

Other sightings were as expected: the back end of a bittern, marsh harriers, GW egrets, lapwings and ducks - no glossy ibis this time.

Distant marsh harriers

Yorkshire Dales NP

WE had a late summer\early autumn visit to the Yorkshire Dales and stayed in the excellent Queens Arms in Littondale.  The weather was dramatic and made for amazing views.