Month: October 2020
-
22nd October 2020 – Stourhead
We picked today to go to the National Trust’s Stourhead in Wiltshire as the best weather of the week was forecast. We were very lucky as it stayed dry but unfortunately there was very little sun until after we had completed our walk around the gardens. Stourhead is claimed to be “one of the world’s…
-
19th October 2020 – Stoke Park Estate, Bristol
It’s that place again! We only had time for a local walk and made the most of the morning sunshine by having a walk around the park and up into the woods and along to Purdown with its comms tower.
-
18th October 2020 – South Gloucestershire and Wiltshire
The sun didn’t appear at all today. It’s a shame it’s so dull at the moment as we are not seeing the autumn colours at their best. We spent the morning and early afternoon in the countryside around Tormarton, Marshfield and Castle Combe (there would have been a few chocolate box photos of this pretty…
-
17th October 2020 – Severn Estuary
It was a dull day, but not too cold, for our walk along the Severn Estuary near Arlingham. As well as lots of gulls on the estuary we came across a male and female stonechat. The female was then replaced by a meadow pipit who continued to “chat” up the male stonechat. We came home…
-
14th October 2020 – Severn Estuary
We had a pleasant walk from New Passage to Severn Beach (or more to the point to Shirley’s café where there is a nice garden to have a coffee) and back even though there was a sharp north easterly wind. We saw a variety of birds on the estuary along the way but were a…
-
13th October 2020 – Stoke Park Estate, Bristol
We only had an hour to get out for a stroll but we needed to “breathe” to get over a disappointment of a cancelled holiday in Norfolk next week as a consequence of Covid-19. I’m sure we would have been seeing many more birds in Norfolk than we did in Stoke Park but the few…
-
11th October 2020 – WWT Slimbridge
As the British Trust for Ornithology says: “Migration is not so obvious in autumn as it is in in spring with summer visitors ‘disappearing’ gradually. Winter visitors tend to arrive over a longer time period and are not in such a rush as spring migrants; the urgency of the breeding season is not there.” It…
-
9th October 2020 – Somerset Levels
We had hoped to see bearded tits at Westhay Moor as I have seen lots of recent reports (and photos) of them here but we were unlucky (in fact very unlucky as we got caught in a shower too). We abandoned our bird watching and went for lunch at the Sheppey Inn. After lunch we…
-
8th October 2020 – Stoke Park Estate, Bristol
I read that the world this year has experienced its hottest September on record. The eleven recently born ducklings I saw on Duchess Pond this afternoon are probably another sign of global warning. It was 15 degrees Celsius and they all seemed very happy and so were we. Predators rather than the weather are probably…
-
1st October 2020 – Severn Estuary
With rain forecast for the next few days at least it was wonderful to take advantage of a sunny calm day along the Severn Estuary. We started at New Passage and immediately saw a couple of little egrets flanked by dunlin fly out into the estuary. One egret continued its flight across the estuary whilst…
Martin's Bird Blog & Nature Photos 