August survey at All Saints, Hemblington

In enervating heat, Linda, Sue, Sue, Peter and I carried out the monthly survey at 'the Little Church on the Hill'. To be honest, we expected little and were not disappointed, although a pair of displaying Buzzards were unusual.

Grey Partridges: it's been a while!

Although I've seen a handful of our delightful native Partridges this year, these two up by Hemblington Church are the first I've photographed in 2026. (Unfortunately right into the setting Sun!)

Perseids

There was a decent number of meteors between 03.00 and 04.00: I counted 15 brightish ones. Attempts at photography were somewhat affected by the steady procession of Mr Musk's Starlink satellites travelling west to east through the Cassiopeia region. With a dark, moonless sky, the Milky Way and M31 (Andromeda galaxy) were naked eye objects for once!

Eclipse!

There was a fabulous clear sky and lots of our lovely neighbours came out to enjoy my projected images of the eclipse. There were several small sunspot groups too! (All this and a fabulous supper courtesy of Sue and Peter!)

Eclipse day!

Really looking forward to tonight's solar eclipse: the best since 1999, when Linda and I drove down to Prawle Point in Devon - still got the glasses, as you can see! We're having an 'Eclipse Supper' with chums Sue and Peter, with plenty of fizz: I've got all the appropriate gear ready to observe, record and project the event: fingers crossed!

A few Perseids (Meteors, that is!)

I happened to wake up at around 03.00, so I thought I'd spend an hour looking for Perseid meteors - this shower is generally agreed to be the most productive of the year. In the event (and despite a thin haze) I recorded a rate of around a dozen an hour. I tried a few photos and actually captured a single 'shooting star', albeit somewhat shaky!

David Bryant: media personality!

Or not! Still: great to see the 'Summer Wine Crew' on TV tonight!

Zitting Cisticola! A lifer and year tick!

Since I'm not really 'into' long-distance twitching these days, it's been a while since I've added to my life list: the last new bird was the Lincolnshire Lammergeier, I think (with recent demotions I'm now 'on' 442: exactly half of this year's total!)

With the hides at Cley being cleaned until 10am, I persuaded Brian and Norman to head south to Walberswick, where a shortish walk almost immediately gave us  distant views of a new bird for all three of us - Zitting Cisticola. I've seen the species in France (when they were still called Fan-tailed Warblers!) so I knew what to look for and was able to find an adult and three juvenile birds. Always distant and through a bit of heat haze, it was still a great result! A couple of obliging Whimbrel were very welcome...

Since Minsmere was due to reopen today, we drove the short distance and walked round a virtually bird- and visitor free reserve. Highlights were lots of Terns, including Arctic, Roseate and Little among the hundreds of Common and Sandwich Terns, and being interviewed over lunch by a BBC Look East camera team! The Sluice Pool held a large shoal of decent Roach.. A brief stop at Hen Reedbeds and then home...