Author: martintayler

I only had an hour to spare and so I wandered across to Stoke Park. The cold wind had ceased and it was good to feel some warmth in the day even though it was still quite grey.

At first I only saw a few crows (one with a tasty meal) and some wood pigeon.

Then a kestrel flew by the trees surrounding Duchess Pond and it stayed long enough for me to make my way round and get close to it next to the pond.

A male stonechat made a brief appearance.

There weren’t many ducks on the pond just a pair of mallard and 4 moorhen.

On the way back there were lots of robins staking their territories noisily and a dunnock.

 

 

 

 

I arrived at Aust Warth in the sunshine but by the time I had taken my camera out of the car it had clouded over and stayed that way for the rest of the morning. I was hoping to have more sightings of the short-eared owl but it doesn’t work that way and all I saw was a distant kestrel. However, I did have an interesting chat with Dave Knowles who (with owl in his name and a personalised registration of  DK …OWL) filled the vacuum of no owls on the warth.

Kestrel

I moved on to Northwick Warth and found the tide was too far in for waders but spotted a few redshank, a dunlin and wigeon waiting in the pill for the tide to go out.

There were shelduck all over the warth but not really close enough for decent  photographs.

I walked out to the Pilning Wetlands with Don Smith and his son (who I had met here last year) who kindly pointed out the peculiar behaviour of the shovelers who were pairing up and circling around each other with their bills immersed in the water. I had never noticed this before.

 

Shovelers circling their mates

There wasn’t much else around – just some tufted ducks, a little egret, a grey heron, a little grebe and some lapwings trying to impress with their acrobatic flying.

Little grebe

Tufted ducks

Tufted duck about to dive.

Lapwings trying to impress

A flock of starling flew by.

On the way back I spotted a buzzard on a pole and only had time to take a photo without a tripod before it flew off. Fortunately I managed to spot it again in a nearby tree.

Buzzard

 

By the time I had got back to the estuary the tide had gone out enough for me to get good views of redshank, dunlin, a turnstone and lots of wigeon.

Redshank

Dunlin photobombing a redshank

Dunlin showing a lack of interest in my camera

Wigeon in flight

Redshank

Redshank

Wigeon posing

Turnstone breaking its camouflage by walking in front of a wigeon

Redshank and a dunlin

Shelduck

Before getting back in the car a robin, a wood pigeon, a blackbird and a pair of starling caught the limelight.

A very cold but very enjoyable morning.

Click below for gallery of photos from this morning:

 

Not many birds around this morning in Stoke Park but more people than usual enjoying winter sports in the snow.

There were 4 mallards and 4 moorhen on the lake; 2 meadow pipits flew over the frozen boggy area and also a cormorant flew over much higher up and then a couple of blue tits on the path home. It all looked very pretty though (especially the trees and the reeds) even though there was a strong wind which made it feel very. cold.

 

Click for a gallery of photos from this morning:

 

 

 

Another visit to Aust was well rewarded with good views of a short-eared owl and (just as we were leaving and camera packed away) a kestrel.

Quite out of the blue a stunning day with blue skies throughout and some warmth in the sun.

I spent a wonderful morning on the Severn Estuary meeting lots of interesting people and seeing lots of birds: I started at Aust Warth where I had great views of a short-eared owl and a kestrel; I then moved on to Northwick Warth where, for me, the bird of most interest was a golden plover.

On Pilning Wetlands I could make out Canada geese, mute swans, shovelers, tufted ducks, a little grebe, lapwings, a grey heron, a little egret and plenty I couldn’t make out.

I was about to leave, as it was getting a little fresh in the wind, when I realised the tide had come in enough to make the estuary quite interesting with shelduck, wigeon, dunlin, turnstone, redshank, and black-headed gulls.

Click below for gallery of photos from this morning:

On a trip to Midsomer Quilting in Chilcompton,  Somerset (the UK’s favourite quilting shop) we stopped off very briefly at Chew Valley Lakes but the only photos Oli (my young apprentice) and I managed were of tufted ducks and a shelduck at Herriott’s Bridge. There were also 4 shovelers but they were too far away to get a decent photo.

Male tufted duck (my photo)

Female tufted duck (Oli’s photo – for more see Oli’s page)

Shelduck

We supported Wendy for a while in the shop but then sneaked out to see what birds were about.

We saw a pied wagtail, 4 collared doves, 2 house sparrows, 4 robins and then to our surprise a little egret in a tree (the shop had reported there were 3 around).

Little egret

There was also a very cheery dunnock in a nearby tree.

Dunnock

After two weeks in the sunshine of South Africa I was expecting not to see much colour on a walk round my local patch of Eastville Park this morning but I was pleasantly surprised.

As well as the following birds which are photographed we saw the beautiful flash of blue as a kingfisher darted up river, the brown and fresh white of a treecreeper very close up and lots of great and blue tits (although their colour did not show too well).

We saw a dipper on the River Frome and the stream leading off.

There were robins in their usual territories (looking alert and making lots of noise) but blackbirds higher up in trees away from their normal territory.

The Canada geese were very feisty.

The mallards were on the lake and up trees (and who says the drakes are more attractive than the females?)

The black-headed gulls had heads of all colours:

The swan woke up when we were there and followed the moulting cygnet around the lake.

Even the lesser black backed gull looked quite attractive.

A couple of moorhen also added some contrast.

It would have been a lovely morning’s walk if a dog had not jumped up to my wife’s shoulders and knocked her flat on the floor causing her lots of bruising but thankfully nothing broken.

 

 

I have been trying to catalogue the birds I saw on my recent trip to Cape Town and have created a page of Western Cape Birds.

It is still a work in progress and I hope my young birdwatching friends Pierre and Gregory in Cape Town will help me to check and identify the birds (I would be pleased for anyone to help me with this project).

Although this was not a birdwatching trip there were plenty of opportunities to see and photograph a large selection of birds in very pleasant conditions.

Our last visit to Kirstenbosch on this trip to Cape Town: I was hoping to see male sunbirds (which we had seen on a previous trip) but we were unsuccessful but not unhappy as we had another lovely walk around the gardens and saw a spotted eagle-owl, and plenty of other birds

Does this count for a sun bird? A bird of paradise plant

Spotted eagle-owl

Olive thrush

Not sure about this one – maybe Cape robin-chat?

Cape bulbul

Pair of Cape bulbuls

Click below for gallery of photos

 

 

Menu Cape Town February/March 2018

We made a return to Kirstenbosch after visiting the nearby  Winery at Groot Constantia just to relax after a busy morning.

Again we enjoyed the gardens but didn’t see much birdlife other than the ubiqitous Guineafowl and Egyptian geese.

Egyptian goose

Guineafowl

Cape bulbul

Click below for gallery of photos.

 

 

See travelog for Friday 2nd March 2018

Menu Cape Town February/March 2018

It was noticeably warmer when we arrived in Stellenbosch with no coastal breezes and our visit to the leafy University of Stellenbosch’s Botanical Garden was very welcome. There were collections of fynbos plants, ferns. orchids, bonsai trees and dry-country succulents  from Namibia and the water lilies were reminiscent of the University of Bristol’s Botanical Gardens but not in sweltering greenhouse (even though there were greenhouses that we didn’t attempt to enter).

Click below for gallery of photos:

 

Travelog for Thursday 1st March 2018

Menu Cape Town Feb/March 2018

 

We so enjoyed the Rondevlei Nature Reserve earlier in our trip to Cape Town we decided to return. We were greeted by the warden who remembered us from our last trip. He suggested that we might also like to visit the Sewerage Works (!) and offered to draw up a map for us whilst we were visiting the reserve.

We didn’t see as much at Rondervlei this time but it was still a very worthwhile visit. However, we couldn’t resist a trip to the sewerage works and followed the warden’s excellent map. This trip was beyond our wildest dreams. Once we had signed in to the park we followed a road for about 4 kms and arrived at the sewerage works (a little smelly as we were warned). From there we followed gravel tracks in our car for kilometre after kilometre and saw the most amazing collection of birds  without ever getting out of the car. The birds didn’t seem affected by us and we could view the birds really close up.

I’ll post (some of) my photos now and try to identify later.

False Bay Nature Reserve photos followed by Rondevlei Reserve photos:

 

 

Rondervlei Reserve photos:

 

 

Travelog for Wednesday 28th February 2018

Menu Cape Town February / March 2018