Today while I was editing my new nature documentary my brother rushed into the study to find me. It turned out he had found a Tawny Owl in our tree in our back garden. When I got out he had the scope trained on the bird I looked through to find a Tawny owl roosting in our garden. It was very visible so I was able to take a photo this is the only photo I got.

A Tawny Owl in our back garden tree

Tring Reservoirs and Ivinghoe

We set off from home at about 6.00 am and arrived at Wilstone reservoir around 6.30 am. We set off down the path towards the reservoir. As we arrived at the jetty Samuel took out his new scope and set it up on my tripod. We scanned for a while looking for waders we saw some like Green Sandpipers, Greenshanks and a Dunlin.

 

 Notes of Dunlin.

As we carried onto the hide we stopped to take a look at some more gulls and waders I scanned through and found a Black-tailed Godwit.

A Black-tailed Godwit

 Then we decided to go onto the hide when we arrived there was no one in it. We set up our stuff and began birding. There were a few more birds but what I was looking out for was a Water Rail or a Spotted Redshank. We found the Spotted Redshank luckily I had spent most of the night finding the differences between a Redshank and a juv. Spotted Redshank. Unfortunately there was not a Water Rail to be seen. I stayed in the hide for about 2 hours observing the birds close up with my brothers scope. It was amazing to see the exact plumage of a Greenshank or a Lapwing. After seeing all we could at Wilstone Reservoir we moved onto College Lake and Pitstone Quarry there was nothing to be seen at them so we moved swiftly on to Ivinghoe. When we arrived we walked down a path near to a valley were we kept our eyes open to see some birds like Redstarts and Corn Bunting we set up the stuff in the valley and scanned the area. After about an hour of waiting and nothing to be seen we spotted something in a tree down at the bottom of the valley we trained the scope on it and identified it as a Redstart. I wanted to get some footage of it but it was to far away see me and my brother edged towards it slowly not making a sound on the way unfortunately found a died  polecat.

  

This is the died polecat berried in flies.

as we got closer we could make out the distinctive call of a Redstart when we were as close as we were going to get i started to get some footage. I have some notes on the Redstart but I don't have enough time to scan them in crop them and then add them to the post.

A mix of two videos of Redstarts with some music added.

After this we realised it was 15:56 and the train left at 16:26 we had to run back to our bikes which took us about 7 mins which left us 23 mins to get to the train station and it usually was a half hour trip we raced like mental and just arrived one minute early as we got on the train the doors closed shut behind us almost instantly.

(The main birds I saw) (names with a ✔ next to them are ticks for me) (Y=Year)

Greenshank ✔

Common Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper ✔

Little Egret  24

Dunlin Y✔

Wigeon

Black-tailed Godwit

Spotted Redshank ✔

Redstart ✔

Raven 2

River wye conoeing

On Monday me and my class set off to go canoeing on the River Wye. I had we had been told a few months earlier. Because of this notice I was able to research what kind of birds I could see. I found a very handy website which told me some of the species to be seen such as the Dipper, Cuckoo, Mandarine, and Goshawks (around the wood next to the river).
This made me very excited about my trip so I brought my binoculars. On the first day we arrived at the starting point at about 1pm. We sat down and ate our snacks as we were doing this I took out my binoculars and began to watch some Sand Martins, House Martins, Mallard and other common species. At about 1.30 or 2 pm we left on the canoes. On the river there was not much to be seen other then Common sandpipers landing and fly around every noun and then. By the end of the day I had not seen much but then suddenly a bird flow across the water next to me dipping in its flight. I found it in my binoculars and followed it to the shore. It landed and I could see the white breast and dark brown back it was a Dipper.
On the second day every thing began to die down I was just seeing Common Sandpipers and Chiffchaffs.
The third day was almost the same. during the whole journey I saw & heard 33 birds all together.
which were: (alphabetical order)

1.  Black-headed Gull
2. Blackbird
3. Blackcap (heard)
4. Blue Tit
5. Bullfinch
6. Buzzard
7. Canada Goose
8. Chaffinch
9. Chiffchaff
10. Common Sandpiper
11. Dipper
12. Dunnock
13. Goosander
14. Great Crested Grebe
15. Great Spotted Woodpecker
16. Great Tit
17. Greenfinch
18. Grey Heron
19. Herring gull
20. House Martin
21. House Sparrow
22. Jackdaw
23. Lesser Black-backed Gull
24. Long-tailed Tit
25. Magpie
26. Mallard
27. Mute Swan
28. Pied Wagtail
29. Red Kite
30. Robin
31. Sand Martin
32. Swallow
33. Swift

Thanks for reading

College Lake

Today I went volunteering at College Lake we started at 10:00 and we had lunch at 12:30. After that we did some more till 3:30 were we went back to College lake and did some birding. We went down to the octagon hide while we were there I toke some pictures of birds such as Little Ringed Plovers, Redshanks and Lapwings. Here are some of the pictures.

Little Ringed plover you can tell by the orange/yellow around the eye

 A Bee Orchid

A lapwing eating what i think is a Worm

Kings Langley Woods

Today when i toke my dog for a walk into the woods in Kings Langley i saw a few things one thing that i was happy to see was 4 Blackcaps (3 males and 1 female) later I also saw quite a few Chiffchaffs.