A gentle stroll around the local park and a chance to get back close up to birds.

We have been visiting friends in Sheffield over the new year. On New Year’s Day we accepted the challenges of the weather and had a short walk on the Eastern Moors in the Peak District on the edges of Sheffield. Here I managed a few photographs of birds near feeders. On the 2nd January the…

At this time of the year the Bewick and Whooper Swans are normally the celebrities at Slimbridge. However, today a diminutive goose, a Ross’s Goose (or possibly a snow goose) made a surprise appearance. I have never seen one of these birds before. Slideshow of photos from this morning:

The kingfisher was on the River Frome (at the bottom of our road) when we started our walk to Eastville Park and there again at the end of our walk, but it was just a fleeting visit – luckily just long enough for me to get my camera out of its bag. It was fairly…

A dull day at Slimbridge can still be very rewarding. A great spotted woodpecker was one of the highlights along with large flocks of lapwings and golden plover. Plenty of northern pintails too. Slideshow of this morning’s photos:

It was very wet underfoot but there was good light and it was still quite mild on my walk through our local park this morning. A pair of stonechats brightened my day which might have been even better if I had managed to find the firecrests which other local birders have been reporting regularly in…

I stopped off at Cheddar Reservoir on my way to the Avalon Marshes in Somerset but a heavy shower sent me scurrying back to my car; and so my only photo of my brief walk was of a pied wagtail. I made another stop by the roadside after Wedmore when I saw a flock of…

A glorious day on the Somerset Levels. We had a brief visit to RSPB Greylake. However, it was very quiet there other than a flock of lapwing which, along with a bittern, were spooked by a marsh harrier. We moved on to RSPB Ham Wall and spent a good deal of our time watching a…

I had a walk around my local park this morning – the first time I felt I could do this since rupturing my Achilles’ tendon at the beginning of the year. No kingfisher today but I wasn’t disappointed by what I saw. Slideshow of my photos from my walk this morning: