They're not orange anymore

Another visit to the banks of the Great Ouse at Roxton. I nearly didn't go because it looked like it was about to rain. But...



Male Scarce Chaser


Female Scarce Chaser
(Well, there's only a little bit of orange on some of the females now)






Banded Demoiselles were frolicking everywhere

Along with

Blue-tailed Damselflies


Common Blue Damselflies


and a White-legged Damselfly


While butterflies included this Large Skipper


Painted Lady (a worn adult, from north Africa)


and Small Tortoiseshell


There were quite a few Harlequin Ladybirds getting busy, too...


Good to see this family still stands at a total of nine cygnets


Compared to the last couple of times I've been there this year, Scarce Chasers have now become harder to find. They're not orange anymore, and they weren't perching quite so prominently. Maybe they're busy with other things...

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM, Extender EF 1.4x II or Canon Powershot A640

Riverside

Scarce Chasers




Banded Demoiselles


Hairy Dragonflies mating


Mute Swan with nine cygnets!
Went back to Roxton today, in search of Scarce Chasers. I had rather grand plans to walk further south along the river, but in the end we walked about a mile in total!
It was very successful, however; the total number of Scarce Chasers seen was 45! All were orange (i.e. no mature males, which are bluish); females are supposed to have more black on their wingtips but I'm not sure how reliable that is.
We also bumped into a few Hairy Dragonflies, including two mating, plus Azure, Common Blue, Blue-tailed and Red-eyed Damselflies, and loads of Banded Demoiselles. And a family of Mute Swans with nine cygnets, which seemed a lot (BTO BirdFacts says 4-7 eggs, but 12 have been recorded).
photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Awright Starlin'

Two Starlings caught in the same mist-net.

The female (right) has a nice story: she was rescued from an attack by another female Starling back in February. She got a bad pecking, but recovered and was ringed and released.

Today we retrapped her with a male Starling. She has a 'brood patch' (a patch of featherless skin for incubating) so obviously has gone on to breed.

You can tell male and female Starlings apart by looking at the base of the beak: blue for boys and pink for girls

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Catching up

I've counted some sheep...

Trudged around in the frost...


Seen lots of swans in a line...




Visited Rainham Marshes


Decorated my desk with Moo MiniCards


Made a Blue Peter-style Secret Santa gift from cardboard, sticky tape and acrylic paints

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM, Extender EF 1.4x II or Canon Powershot A640

'At a site in the north of the county'

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Beeston

Kestrel

Meadow Pipit

We went to Del and John's ringing session at Beeston this morning. There were a few nets around the garden and a 'pipit box' out in a stubble field - a triangle of nets with a tape lure in the middle. It succeeded in attracting Meadow Pipits but also a Kestrel which dived helpfully into the nets. It was a bit grumpy and stuck a talon into Del's finger.

Elsewhere around the farm it was great to see hedges bursting with fruit and buzzing with insects.

Small Tortoiseshell

Hedge full of berries

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

LeO Sayer

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Beds birding again

Graffiti-covered building, Marston Moretaine

Stewartby lake

Bedfordshire birders have been revelling in a superb spring passage over the past couple of weeks. Mark Thomas wrote about his Sunday, April 20. On Monday lunchtime, I twitched a flock of 10 Whimbrel at Broom gravel pits, where on Wednesday lunchtime there were around 70 Arctic Terns swooping gracefully over the water (Ferry Meadows had around 200!). We dropped in at Stewartby to see a Sandwich Tern flying around on its own there, but missed a Red-throated Diver near Leighton Buzzard by a few minutes.

On Thursday, a singing Wood Warbler was found at Marston Vale Country Park. It was too much to resist, so we drove there through the rain after work. As I got out of the car, it was thundering and threatening to throw it down, so I decided to leave my DSLR in the car, for its own sake.

Of course, we got to the bird, it sang and was pretty showy for a leaf-lurker, and the sun came back out. As Messrs Blain and Whitney snapped away, I tried to tell myself that I'd only have been disappointed with the photos I'd have taken. Now I'm going to have to paint it, or something...

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Beds birding

Thursday evening:

Tempsford twitchers l-r: Darren, Lloyd, Mark and Richard

Thursday morning:

The brown blob in the middle is the Stone-curlew

It's been a strange week in Bedfordshire, as far as I can tell. On Monday night we went to see a flock of 24 Black-tailed Godwits at Fenlake Meadows in Bedford. I've been spoiled as far as Blackwits go by the Nene Washes, but it was funny to see them with towerblocks and houses in the background.

On Thursday, we got a call about a Stone-curlew at Tempsford airfield, for which we made a quick diversion from work. That was pretty amazing. It was decidedly distant but it'll probably be the only one I ever see in the county.

That evening we were back at Tempsford. We went round to Station Road to see the Redstart which had been found by someone looking for the Stone-curlew but who'd got lost! We got good but brief views of a beautiful male bird, something we're usually deprived of in the east...

(If you want to see a nice Redstart photo, head over to Weedon's World)

Next stop Fenlake Meadows again, where a Grey Plover was showing well with the godwits. I was really surprised to see it hadn't cleared off before we got there, but there it was. It's a shame it wasn't in breeding plumage, but you can't have everything. It still looked pretty nice in the evening light, and beggars can't be choosers.

We were going to go to Broom to see if the Whimbrel was still there, but opted for the pub instead so we didn't dirty our 100% record for that evening.

So, maybe I should stop moaning about how crap Bedfordshire birding is.

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640 +- Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

There's not much in them there hills...

Yearning for Ring Ouzels and suchlike, we headed for the hills this morning. This is Deacon Hill, near Pegsdon in Bedfordshire:




Regrettably, there were no ouzels, no redstarts of any variety and no Wheatears. Our best bird was a fly-over Curlew. There was a nice view from the top (Sandy transmitter and Little Barford power station visible through binoculars - a distance of 18 miles), but not much to see on the way up and the way down.

We also dropped in at Sharpenhoe Clappers, but there was even less to see there.

After discarding our crampons and oxygen cylinders, we stopped off at Rookery pit, where we failed to see three Ruff. 'Best' bird was what looked like an Argentine Bluebill, which, in case you're unaware, has (in proportion to body size) the biggest penis of any bird (20cm!). And no, we didn't see it.

Good storm-clouds, though

A whole new ecosystem in a bit of discarded carpet

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Beds birding

Started in Cambridgeshire, at Croydon. It's the highest point in the county and you can walk along the ridge, with nice views across the border into Bedfordshire.

Skylark

The abandoned medieval village of Clopton

A fox was hunting rabbits among the earthworks

Next stop, Broom gravel pits. Move along now, there's nothing for you here...

Yellowhammer

A pair of Oystercatchers fed along one of the pits. The bird not in this photo was ringed

Next, Pegsdon Hills, a Wildlife Trust reserve.

Peacocks were quite plentiful on the blossom

Meadow Pipits were in song all over the hill

Ring Ouzel record shot for Darren...

They have some nice sheep grazing the slopes

Triangulation point

Unusual subject matter for a pub sign nearby

Dog-violet

Sand Martins back at their colony along Meadow Lane

Ringed Plover at Willington

bird/insect photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

macro/landscape photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995 + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece