Red-backed Shrike at West Runton

Brian had only a tiny window of opportunity today, but we seized it anyway and were in the car park at West Runton by 11.15. We followed the online instructions of a well-known bird-blogger that took us 180 degrees away from the target bird's usual haunt, but fortunately we bumped into Yare Valley regular David who led us back past our car to the car park entrance, where a delightful juvenile Red-backed Shrike performed for us at around forty yards distance. At times it was being mobbed by a Whitethroat and a couple of House Sparrows. Other birds in the same area included Wheatear and Whinchat.

A move westwards to Weybourne failed to turn up the long-staying Wryneck, which was reportedly flushed by a middle-aged couple: I have since been told that this just wasn't the case, and that these two keen naturalists had, in fact, enjoyed good views for a considerable time through their stealthy approach. We did grab photos of Lesser Whitethroat and juvenile Whitethroat, as well as a few Stonechats.

Last stop was Cley, where the Centre Hides produced four Green Sandpipers and a good number of other waders.

 

Suddenly we have butterflies!

With the temperature on the Heath reaching 30 degrees, it was perhaps unsurprising that our garden was full of butterflies. Despite a fairly gusty westerly, ten different species of these splendid creatures spent the day flitting from buddleia to centranthus.

Most abundant were the Lesser Tortoiseshells, with over fifty counted, followed closely by Red Admiral. Peacock, and Small White. Most pleasing were the four Painted Ladies and pair of Brimstones, while just one of each of Gatekeeper, Large White, Speckled Wood and Meadow Brown passed through.

Nothing rare, then, but plenty to brighten up the garden!

 

Oooops! False alarm: but not my fault, for once!

Dear AuroraWatch UK subscriber,

We apologise for the earlier false alert (issued 13:25 UTC today) which was caused by a lawnmower creating a local disturbance at our Lancaster site. For more information please see

http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/aurorawatchuk/2016/08/23/red-alert-cancelled/
 

The AuroraWatch UK team

http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/

This email has been sent by the AuroraWatch UK mailing list.

To unsubscribe or change your subscription options visit

http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/cgi-bin/subscribe

Strumpshaw Fen: more Glossy Ibis photos.

Here are some more (possibly better) photos of the Ibis in front of Tower Hide, as well as some Teal in flight. There were quite a few of these on the scrape: not that common a sight here in summer, and a bit of a distraction when looking for the six Garganey. I notice on the various 'round up' blogs that there were over thirty of these delightful little ducks available in the county yesterday: this must surely be the tip of a record-breaking total. Here are a couple more photos!

I've also added more photos of some of the dozen or more Ruff that were present: to paraphrase the Kevin Costner film "Get the water level right and they will come!"

 

 

 

Glossy Ibis at Strumpshaw Fen

Linda and I were snowed under with work, carpet fitting and tree pruning today, but I escaped before lunch to look for the reported Glossy Ibis at the Fen.

As I walked past the sluice I met Elizabeth Dack, who was keen to tell me the bird had disappeared  "..but not before I'd taken eighty pictures at close range"' Hmmmm! LOL!

Undaunted, I pressed on to Tower Hide, picking up Green Sandpiper on the way. Only one other birder was in the hide: a really nice chap from Hethersett. We enjoyed watching the semi-resident 12+ Ruffs flying about, as well as a couple of Water Rails, at least three Garganey and a Snipe. After an hour's wait, I picked out the Ibis in the distance, flying in from the direction of Fen Hide. It hung around for perhaps another hour before flying back in the same direction. While it was present (albeit somewhat distantly) warden Ben and Strumpshaw regular Murray arrived to enjoy this welcome visitor.

Welcome visitors!

Linda and I had lots of gardening to catch up with today, but it was really great to enjoy these three visitors to our garden! The hedgehog comes most nights to eat birdseed (!) and has been doing so for five or six months: he rarely shows up in broad daylight, though. The Small Tortoiseshell, amazingly, was a first for the year in the garden: one of about ten that appeared today. The frog lives under our patio set and sits on the lawn while we eat our barbecues: as soon as the cover goes back on the table, he hops back underneath!