Just a Duck

We called at Leighton Moss RSPB on our way up to Southern Scotland a couple of weeks ago. Why wouldn’t yoy? It’s a great reserve. A duck was in front of one of the hides that I didn’t immediately recognise. Based on the size of the bill it was a shoveler species. An obvious escape. I thought initially Cape Shoveler but no, it was more like something I was much more familiar with … Australian Shoveler.

However, it didn’t match exactly the birds I’d seen on my many visits to the former colony. The breast and flanks seemed to be the wrong colour/patterning and the facial crescent was much more prominent. A 2018 paper in Dutch Birding describes the quest of several Dutch birders to identify a similar hybrid duck on the island of Schiermonnikoog. The article is here. What do you think?

High Tide

Last week’s ‘Snettisham Spectacular’ day tour to The Wash was just that … spectacular.

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A little skip

I’m not sure what species of seaweed or pine cone the BBC are using for forecasting these days but I’ll give them some information for free … it’s not working. When the weather app says sunny all day for several days in advance and with 12 hours to go they change it to cloud with rain something ain’t right. The clue is in the name. It’s supposed to be a ‘fore-cast‘.

Anyways, it’s sufficient to say finding butterflies on the Silver Spotted Skipper day in Buckinghamshire wasn’t as easy as it could have been on Thursday. However, even with the drizzle, even with the cloud and even in the rain we managed to find 18 species of butterfly on one south facing slope. Included in the list were some dazzling Adonis Blues and of course a couple of Silver Spotted Skippers.

Dragons Den

A couple of photos of dragons taken last week. Firstly a Southern Hawker at Foxley Wood and a Black Darter (female) taken on the recent Cumbria Butterfly Tour.

Southern Hawker

Black darter (female)

Spreadwings

A message from friend Simon had me searching the trees around the local retting pond the other week. He’d seen an emerged Willow Emerald Damselfly. Equipped with camera I picked a likely spot and waited. It wasn’t long before one made a stunted reed stem its perch. Odd to think this beautiful species has colonised the south east of the UK in only the last 10 years.

Back to Black

The trip to Mull this year gave us some pretty good wildlife encounters; not least with Black Guillemot. I particularly liked this shot in bright sunshine of an individual swimming below us. There are still places available on next years tour

Checking us out

Think ‘intelligent dog’ when considering cetaceans.

During the UK mammal tour this week we had a rather curious Minke Whale that came to check out our boat. Circling us twice giving superb views down to a few metres – he then continued his feeding. In calm glassy conditions the whole whale was visible under the water. It was even possible to see the pectoral white bands as the animal descended back into the deep.

Full details of next years mammal tour will be available in a few days time.

 

New Website

Well! That was a bit of a week that was. Talk about getting to grips with software and messing about on the laptop. If the next time you see me I’ve got oblong eyes and look like Brains out of Thunderbirds you know why!

I think … he said cautiously … it’s now all done and dusted. The website is live. Just needs someone to have a gander at the spelling, but yes … Elvis has left the building!

Please take a look and tell me what you think.

www.wildlifetoursandeducation.co.uk

 

Wildcatch Photography

I have updated the ‘latest’ section of the Wildcatch Photography site with some photos I took last year http://wildcatchphotography.zenfolio.com/p34814967

Follow the link, click on ‘slideshow’, sit back and enjoy a trip through last year.

Planting trees

This Jay has been stealing the crop of acorns from one of the two oaks in the garden for the last few weeks. (S)he has been planting them with some regularity in the lawn. I could end up living in a forest!