Author: martintayler

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I realise the quality of my photos today are not really worthy of a blog but it does give me a focus in these strange times and its worth keeping a record for myself. Especially as I added a new bird to my garden list (I’m not really keeping a list) when I spotted a distant male sparrowhawk  flying over head – in fact it was probably more likely to be flying over the neighbouring district of Frenchay as it was a long way away.

#stayhome  #staysafe

Male sparrowhawk 

Male sparrowhawk

Dunnock (hedge sparrow)

Dunnock (hedge sparrow)

House sparrow

Lesser black-backed gull

Lesser black-backed gull

Collared dove

Dunnock

House sparrow

Bee

 

 

Just a few birds taken from the garden this morning.

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Carrion crow

Male house sparrow

Starling

Magpie (being mobbed by crows)

No wonder the magpie looked worried

Starling

House sparrow

Wood pigeon

Collared dove

 

Even though it hasn’t been as bitingly cold as yesterday it has been a very dull day and my trips to the end of the path didn’t produce much. I did see the house sparrows, which are making a nest in the eves of the roof of the house opposite, mating in a nearby tree but the light was so poor for a decent photo. More and more sparrows are appearing and starlings, crows and jackdaws are collecting nesting materials. The dunnocks have again been looking at themselves in car wing mirrors.

What was quite an achievement was to get a photo of a blue tit on the bird feeder – my presence nearly always frightens them off.

House sparrows mating

 

Starlings collecting nest materials

Wood pigeon

Blue tit on one of my garden feeders

Blue tit on the tree opposite my house

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It was very cold standing outside my house this morning. I didn’t get much exercise but I did get some fresh air and was entertained for an hour or so by nature.

Male sparrow

Starling

Collared dove

Collared dove

Collared dove and sparrow

Starling

Female sparrow

Female sparrow

Starling

Female sparrow

Female sparrow

Female sparrow

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At the end of the first week of self-isolating due to the Covid-19 pandemic it was a sure delight to get out and about today. I have kept myself busy during the week doing jobs in and around the house but I have felt hemmed in (not surprisingly) and the lack of social contact was beginning to have an effect on my moral.

We were pleased to hear earlier in the week that the National Trust was keeping its outdoor spaces open but as people went there in their droves social distancing was clearly not possible and this decision was revoked. So we decided to give the Forest of Dean a go. We have been many times to the RSPB Reserve at Nags Head in the past and  never seen many people. Fortunately again today there were very few people around and we could keep a good distance from them.

The aim of our sortie was to get some exercise and not particularly to do bird watching, which was just as well as we didn’t see many birds at all (we avoided the bird hides even if they had been open). It was a lovely sunny day and the beauty of the forest certainly lifted our spirit.

Although we didn’t get many sightings of birds we did have a wonderful moment when a bat flitted around above us. A managed one rather poor shot which might enable anyone who knows about these things to identify it. – a pipistrelle perhaps?

Right at the beginning of our walk a lone greylag goose mystically appeared from nowhere.

Greylag goose

There were a few blackbirds, some coal tits and frequent noisy robins.  We also heard woodpeckers, probably Great Spotted although Lesser Spotted are found here.

Blackbird

Coal tit

Robin

Robin

 

 

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to get out and take photos and write a blog as its been very wet and I have also been sidelined with a poorly foot. As a septuagenarian the risk of Covid-19 will clearly limit my opportunities for a while. Hopefully I will manage a little exercise in the park and maintain social distancing.

It was truly beautiful this morning. The stars for me were a peacock butterfly, a wren, a chiffchaff , a couple of grey wagtails and a kingfisher but I also enjoyed photographing the ducks, geese and swans on the lake.

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It may seem a bit mundane reporting on the same walk around Eastville Park but its all we had time for  and anyway there’s nearly always something interesting to see. Today’s highlight was definitely a tree creeper.

Tree creeper

We heard, and generally saw, robins all round the park. Early on we saw a goldcrest (sadly no photo) near Fishponds Brook.

A robin to greet us

Another robin half way round

On the lake there was a grey heron, a coot, a couple of  moorhens, 6 mute swans, two Canada geese, lots of black-headed gulls and a couple of lesser black-backed gulls.

Grey heron

Mute swan

Canada goose

Moorhen

Black-headed gull

Lesser black-backed gull

A pigeon strutting its stuff

Crow

For the first time for a while we saw no cormorants but there were plenty of corvids, mainly crows and some jackdaws lurking in the trees and around the lake.

We saw the tree creeper along the River Frome. True to form it landed on the tree and made its way around the trunk out of sight. When it reappeared it hid frustratingly behind the small branches but then fleetingly gave me a chance to capture it. I’m sure my editing of the photos makes its stand out much more than we saw as its camouflage on the bark was quite amazing.

Tree creeper

On the way home we saw a jay, lots of magpies and several wood pigeons.

The other pleasing sight was the celandine which was quite prominent in the sunshine

A different robin to bid us farewell

 

 

 

Back to reality! I decided not to be a wimp and got out for a walk this morning. Light showers were forecast and I must admit it wasn’t raining when I left home. But when I arrived at the lake at Eastville Park it began to rain and continued to pour until I got home. Light shower indeed!

I caught a glimpse of a kingfisher but anything moving faster than a hovering black-headed gull didn’t get captured by my camera!

The only way I could make any of the birds look interesting was to try and get in close.

The highlight was being able to see the tawny owl on the island and a pied wagtail which followed me around the lake. A coot and a moorhen came close too. What did the robin find to be so cheerful about?

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Tawny Owl

Brightly coloured pigeon (it wasn’t the sun catching its plumage!)

Pied wagtail

Pied wagtail

Coot

Moorhen

Black-headed gull

Cormorant

Magpie

Robin

In this blog I have tried to compile a record of the different birds we saw on our holiday to South Africa in January and February 2020.

We started our holiday with a safari trip to the Thornybush Private Game Reserve in Greater Kruger. Although the main focus of the trip was to observe the animals in the park there were plenty of opportunities to see lots of birds.

We spent three nights at the Chapungu Lodge in Greater Kruger and took part in 6 game drives (3 in the morning from 5 am to 8am and 3 in the afternoon from 4 pm to 7 pm).

We then flew back to Johannesburg and then on to Port Elizabeth. From there we drove along the Garden Route to Cape Town stopping (for 2 or 3 nights each time) at St Francis Bay, Knysna, Oudtshoorn, Robertson, and Franschoek. When we arrived in Cape Town we spent 10 nights in Camps Bay.

We were due to do a bird watching trip up the Kromme River in St Francis but this was cancelled due to persistent rain. The only other organised bird watching trip was to the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve when we were staying in Cape Town.

Not all our time was spent bird watching We managed to pack lots in to our holiday including seeing South Africa play England in a cricket ODI at Newlands and visits to lots of vineyards and botanical gardens.

I have tried to show a variety of the birds we saw at each place. Although I am very pleased with many of the photos others are not so good but are included for ID purposes. Currently there is no particular order to the birds but they are generally in the order in which we saw them.

Please note: I am still adding photos to this collection and continuing the process of identifying and labelling them.

Click on heading for each place (on the following pages there will be a link to return to this page or use the back button on your browser)

I would like to thank Larry Sweetland and David Swanepoel for help with identifying birds in this blog.

Birds of Thornybush Private Game Reserve, Greater Kruger

Birds of Knysna

Birds of Oudtshoorn

Birds of Robertson

Birds of Strandfontein Birding Area, False Bay Coastal Park

Birds of Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve

Birds of Camps Bay

Birds of Blouberg Strand and nearby lagoons

Birds of Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens

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We spent the last day of our wonderful trip to South Africa visiting the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. Their website says “Kirstenbosch is acclaimed as one of the great botanic gardens of the world. Few gardens can match the sheer grandeur of the setting of Kirstenbosch, against the eastern slopes of Cape Town’s Table Mountain”. Indeed Kirstenbosch is one of our favourite gardens in the world. We have visited it several times and even visited it on this trip with some friends just over a week ago when we arrived in Cape Town.

It was a bit cooler today and even quite chilly as the cloud came down late in the afternoon. (Although, the other side of the mountain in Camps Bay, where we have been  staying, it had been sunny and hot all day.

View across Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden from the Tree Canopy Walk.

Tree Canopy Walkway

Today we saw more birds than last week (clearly I must have been talking too much last week) and even saw a new bird for us, an Olive Woodpecker. But the stars of the day were the Lesser Double-collared Sunbirds which we saw several times feeding in the Ericas. We also had plenty of sightings of Cape Bulbuls.

Olive Woodpecker

Olive Woodpecker

Lesser Double-collared Sunbird

Lesser Double-collared Sunbird

Lesser Double-collared Sunbird

Cape Bulbul

Cape Bulbul

Cape Bulbul

Forest Canary

Cape Robin-Chat

Juvenile Cape Robin-Chat

Fork-tailed Drongo

Red-winged Starling

Butterflies too!

… and lots of beautiful plants:

What a great way to end our trip.