Photographic failure

Abroad many of the birds which are endangered in Britain are quite common especially Red-backed Shrikes. This is why me and my brother are lucky enough to have a local Red-backed Shrike colony in Germany. It took this opportunity to take some pictures of Red-backed Shrikes which I wouldn't be able to in England. Well I couldn't have had a worse idea. I headed to the sight and after a 3 minute cycle ride I was setting up my camera equipment and getting to a well hidden spot good for photographing the Shrikes. I didn't have to wait long before a Juv. Red-backed Shrike popped up on the top of the hedge and I took a few pictures.

Juv. Red-backed Shrike

Then when I was reviewing my pictures I felt a small bite on my hand I looked at it and it was some kind of ant. I immediately stood up and saw hundreds of them walking all over me. I had completely forgotten about the Shrikes and began to try and get them off but the ants began to bite me all over and it was starting to hurt so I packed my stuff away quickly and ran back to my bike. Even on the cycle ride home I was being bitten by ants the photo was definitely not worth the bites.

To Buchholz and back again

The next day we were more lucky with birds. Again my brother had got up earlier and already explored the woodland. I then tagged along on his second part of the walk which was to Buchholz. The road on which you get to Buchholz is surrounded by woodland so woodland species are not uncommon. On the way on that day we bumped into some Firecrests. We decided to stay in the place in hope of some more interesting species, and our wait payed off we saw a small group of Crested Tits which flitted around above our heads. We were proving to be quite lucky in this spot so we stayed there for a little longer and after a short wait we heard a Willow Tit call in the woods, we tried to track it down but only saw it for a few seconds before it flew off. Whilst we waited for the Willow Tit to show again we saw another two which was enough for us so we moved on. On the farmland we managed to almost instantly find the resident pair of Red-backed Shrikes. No male was to be seen but two females which was odd but they showed no sign of vermiculation which a Juvenile bird would. Whilst I was taking a look at the Shrikes my brother spotted some kind of dove on the telephone wires and asked me to have a look at it. I almost instantly recognised it as a Turtle Dove with its red eye, its white,blue and black collar and its reddy brown back. Unfortunately whilst my brother and I were celebrating and writing the sighting down in our books it it flew off and we didn't know where it had gone. But all in all a successful days birding.

to read my last post on going to the altenburghutte click here.

Off to the Hütte

Unlike my brother, I decided to have a nice lay in, but it wasn't long before I too was having to role out of bed after being woken by his alarm. When he had got back from his first walk about the place I was ready to go so Samuel was kind enough to go out again. Bird wise it was dull with only a possible Spotted Flycatcher and a possible Black Kite which had a very shallow forked tail but other wise to me was unrecognizable due to it only being a silhouette. But on the Butterfly side of things we had a great day. We started off with a Map Butterfly which was very shy when it came to photos.

Map Butterfly

We also had some Clouded Yellow Butterflies which were very reluctant to land anywhere so I gave up on trying to photograph one. We also had Painted Lady which showed nicely. But it was when we got to the edge of the woods when we began to see the real good Butterflies. It started with a Silver-washed Fritillary which kept on growing in number until we had a total of 3. I then spotted a butterfly which was flying away from us at first in flight it looked like a gatekeeper but when it landed and we were able to inspect it turned out to be a Fritillary. We first took our ID photos and then when we had IDed it as a QUEEN OF SPAIN FRITILLARY one that I had never before seen we went into proper photography mode.

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Next on the list was a Mallow Skipper a butterfly which does not occur in the UK. I was more interested in the Fritillaries so I left my brother to photograph the skipper whilst I ran around after the other butterflies.

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Later on when we eventually got to the Altenburghütte we saw a few Purple hairstreaks due to the hütte being so high we were at the top of the oak trees so a perfect opportunity to photograph the Hairstreak.

Purple Hairstreak

To read my last post about my trip through France click here.

Going onto the continent

Well it was that time of year again when the Butterflies come out and all the schools are on holiday and in this time free, people wish to go on holiday to exotic places or places they haven't explored before. In my case the holiday was to Germany. Yep some where I have been probably over 39 times and we all know how exotic it is there. Well again on the trip to Germany my brother and I were lucky and had a chance to stop off on the way. Our destination, Oye Plage near Calais. We had visited this reserve once and had experienced a wonderful amount of Kentish Plovers, but this time we decided to go round a different way around the shooting pools. Although these pools are specifically made or shooting they can at certain times of the year be very bountiful in birds but we choose just the wrong time to go exactly when they were beginning to start shooting so we only saw a few Common Sandpipers, a Green Sandpiper, some Whimbrel and a Snipe. We decided after this to head on to the beach in hope we may see some more Kentish Plovers again but it wasn't to be so we headed back to the car luckily we met a local on the way who told us about a hide which was slightly hidden away. We took a short walk to the hide where we were greeted with a run down wooden hide. We went inside and our day immediately improved. We had a short scan through the scope and I found myself a small amount of Avocets and shortly after a very blurred Spoonbill. After carrying on the scan I found out there were in fact a total of 12 Spoonbill. On the butterfly side of things we were lucky and got a large variety including: Painted Lady, Grayling, Clouded Yellow, Speckeled Wood, Essex Skipper and Red Admiral. And in the end the day turned out to be successful. P.S I am very sorry about the lack of photos recently.

Completing the Dowitchers (03/08/13)

On the 3rd me and Samuel were eventually at home and had a free weekend. This left us to the choice to be able to go twitch something for the first time in a long time. Chris was interested to go see the Dowitcher down at Pennington Marshes and so were we. When the Saturday eventually came we left at around 5:30am from Kings Langley. It didn’t take us long before we were parked up and walking to pool. On the way we did a little birding trying to find something for ourselves like a Wood Sandpiper. We were fruitless in our efforts and arrived at the pool when the largest congregation of twitchers had gathered. Then after a little looking we were rewarded with a stunning Adult Long-billed Dowitcher. After looking at the bird for a while we found the Curlew Sandpipers which was a boggy bird for me and then headed back to find the Little Stint but were rewarded with only some Dunlin and Greenshank. After a while we gave up on the search and headed back to the dowitcher when we arrived we were informed that it hadn’t been seen in a while so we carried on to do some more general this time we managed to see a Sanderling along with some Turnstone. Then on the way back to the car we stopped off at the Dowitcher spot one last time to see it, but it still had not been seen so we stuck around and hoped that we would be the ones to find it. We gave up after a short while and carried on but when we were half way around the pool Samuel had fond the Dowitcher and called over the other twitchers, the problem had been that we had been looking from a different angle so it had been hidden from us but from where we were looking we had some nice scope views. Other noteable species were Ringed and Little Ringed Plover. We then moved on to Acres Down in hope of some Woodland species after a nice walk through the woods we came out with: Common Redstart, Crossbill, Treecreeper and a possible tree pipit.