Jack Snipe

Last weekend I zipped out to North Wales for a spot of birding. I started on the Great Orme where a pair of Lapland Buntings had been reported, but despite scouring the area around the limestone pavement I was unable to find the birds. The strong easterly wind made if feel decidedly chilly so I retreated to the comfort of the cafe at the nearby Conway RSPB reserve. After a very welcome lunch I strolled around the reserve and was delighted to see a Jack Snipe roosting on the edge of a muddy pool. These small relatives of the Common Snipe are normally very secretive, but this bird clearly hadn't read the rule book. Unfortunately, the  hide did not have shutters only glass windows and and photographs taken through the glass were slighlty distorted. By the time the snipe woke up and fed at a site that was viewable without looking through the windows the sky had clouded over, but I still managed to take some reasonable shots of this normally elusive little wader.

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Dotterel

Norfolk in October

New Quay Dolphins

New Quay in Wales is undoubtedly one of the best places in Britain to see Bottlenosed Dolphins. Pack yourself a picnic and settle down on the breakwater wall and enjoy the amazing cetacean show played out in the clear waters of Cardigan Bay. This is exactly what Jane and I did last June, and despite the changeable weather we enjoyed a full day's dolphin entertainment. The animals here can be viewed without optics but to obtain the best views a pair of binoculars is a real boon.
It is not easy to estimate the total number of dolphins seen, but there were at least a two or three mother and calf pairs quite close to the harbour wall, while further out small pods could be seen fishing and performing breathtaking acrobatics in the company of plunge-diving Gannets. Even after many hours of observation it was a struggle to drag ourselves away from this amazing wildlife spectacle; but we will be back.
All photos were taken from the breakwater with a 400mm lens.

This adult Kittiwake fed close to the harbour wall

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Azores Common Dolphins

Dolphins

Dotterel

This weekend I had two distinctly different birding experiences with two different species of wading bird. The first bird was a beautiful juvenile Dotterel that graced the grassy plateau near the limestone pavement on the Great Orme, Conway. Dotterel breed on grassy tundra and are also a rare breeding bird of the mountain tops in Scotland. This means that they have very little contact with humans and as a result can be quite tame; as was the case with the Welsh bird that approached to within a few feet of where I was sitting in the sunshine. During the two hours that I spent on site only a handful of birders viewed this confiding wader. In total contrast a the Stilt Sandpiper at Neumann's Flash in Cheshire was but a distant speck in my telescope and afforded scant photographic opportunities. But due to its greater rarity many more birders visited this site. On a scale where zero is failing to see a bird at all and ten is giving the proverbial "crippling" views I would award this bird a paltry number one! That is only one better than not seeing the bird at all. OK, joking aside, it was a Cheshire tick for me, but the Stilt Sands that I have seen before at Minsmere in 1997 and in Dorset in 2011 gave much better views. But I wouldn't go as far to say that it was a bad as the Great Knot in the Northeast in 1996, but that's another story.

Although the sun shone brightly for most of the day the wind was
quite strong and the bird made the most of this outcrop of
limestone that offered some respite from the relentless breeze.

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Whimbrel

Little Swift

Yorkshire Insects

I recently spent a cultural day with my family in the village of Haworth, West Yorkshire,  home of the famous Bronte sisters. I did manage a few shots of the local wildlife as we also visited the picturesque village of Wycoller where there was an abundance of insects.

Green-veined White butterflies

Small Skipper

Common Hawker

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Butterflies and Dragonflies

Humpback Whale

Turnstones

I photographed these Turnstones on the coastal defences at Wallasey over the high tide. It's nice to have such enigmatic waders close to home. Some of the birds were still in summer-plumage which is always nice to see.

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Whimbrel

Short-eared Owl

Caspian Tern

I finally caught up with this monster tern that has been commuting between Cheshire and Staffordshire for the last few days. My only other British sighting of Caspian Tern was in 1992 at Neumann's Flash in Cheshire; who would have thought that the Northwest of England was a good place to see the world's largest species of tern?

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Whimbrel

Azores Bullfinch