There was nothing of great note locally in the months of August and September, and to be honest, after the Madagascar extravaganza, everything paled into insignificance for a while. A fair few Curlew Sandpipers   turned up at various locations, and I had fun trying to get my best shots of this photogenic species. Work took over from the start of the academic year, and it wasn’t until late September than I took up my binoculars again. The 28th of the month proved to be good fo

Madagascar was always on my bucket list, and with the additional attraction of ‘monkey-type things’, the girls were also on board and keen to accompany me, at least for some of the time. It was effectively a three-week tour, with the others joining me for the last two. It was an amazing trip. Sure, I only saw 109 bird species, but 81 of these were new and an astonishing 78 of these were endemics. And let’s not forget the 20 lemur species, the whales, the 9 gecko species, th

June, July and August were mostly quiet. The local sea-watching point was again the destination of choice on 1st June. Suffice to say, I spotted three very distant, high-up Pomarine Skuas but nothing else at all. I didn’t do much birding in the rest of June, and it wasn’t in fact until the end of July that I managed to get out again. A brief visit to the local mudflats on 25th July produced a lovely adult Mediterranean Gull , an unusual sight round here. And what a stunning

The 30th produced nothing for me in terms of sea watching, but at the nearby reserve, I got my best shots ever of Marsh Harrier   (with...

On 28th May, I headed back to the coast for the high tide roost, expecting just to snap common waders. To my delight, in addition to...