Hunting Hen Harrier On Islay
If you see any photo of a hunting Hen Harrier with Jura in the background you are bound to be on Islay. We have just come back from our Autumn week on Islay which has been surprisingly mild but with a distinct lack of any sun. Unlike back home Islay has had a bumper crop […]
Hopwood Corvid Roost
.The spire of Hopwood Hall college is a well known site in north Manchester. The woodlands around the hall are good places for birds but what is not generally known is that the bird-watching gets even better as the sun sets.From miles around corvids (Jackdaws, Carrion Crows, Rooks and Magpies) fly in to roost in […]
Redwings Arrive
At dusk on the 2nd October I heard my first Redwing of Autumn but it took until the 19th before I found a flock of sixteen feeding on hawthorne berries. In complete contrast to last year there are very few Rowan or Hawthorne berries available to them this year so we are unlikely to see […]
Snipe Record
During the last ten days there has been a massive local passage of Snipe, helped no doubt by the many waterlogged fields. On the 10th in my local marsh I had a record count of seventy one Snipe and two Jack Snipe, they were the earliest I have recorded in more than fifty years! Click […]
The Arctic Flycatcher
The last time I saw a Grey Phalarope it was catching flies off the surface of a pool in Spitsbergen and was only 600 miles from the North Pole. Who would have thought that one of the most iconic of Arctic birds would turn up on a reservoir in Manchester and still be feeding on […]
Nightjars Return
On the 2nd August 1980 I came across a female Nightjar brooding two large young on Chat Moss. In those days it was the only place in Greater Manchester where Nightjars bred and soon after, through peat extraction, Nightjars ceased to breed in the County. During the thirty seven years since 1980 very few Nightjars […]
Heard The One About The Hedgehog?
During the last couple of months, when darkness falls over the garden and all the feeding birds have gone to roost, other visitors begin to appear. Hedgehogs have been coming to feed below the bird feeders and have taken readily to food put out specially for them. We have had a minimum of five different […]
Repeat Performance
In last years blog of the 9th October there is a photo of a roosting Long Eared Owl amongst Himalayan Balsam. I came across the roosting Owl in a remote Pennine valley and never thought I would ever find one again in such vegetation. This week I walked through this valley again and there in […]
Peterloo
In all the years I have been filming birds in the Pennines I have been disturbed on many occasions but what happened in June this year was quite unique. I had been sat in my hide in a peaceful Oak wood, deep in the Pennines, filming a pair of Green Woodpeckers as they fed their […]
Fledged Barn Owls
This weeks photo is of two recently fledged Barn Owls about to take their first evening flight. It is only a record shot taken from the car more than 400 yards away and these two were part of a brood of six that fledged from a barn just a few yards away. The significance of […]