All quiet on the coast

All quiet here on the island. Birds are busy moulting, bugs and butterflies waiting for the sun to shine.
Could be a long wait!!
10th august, had a walk up to Ventnor radar station, the views from the top of Nansen hill looking towards Sandown bay were breathtaking despite the overcast weather. The heather was stunning.

A meadow brown butterfly was carrying red mites.

Despite the dull weather I had a lot of fresh air and the excercise coming up nansen hill wont have done me any harm!!

Spotted in my back garden last week was a Common Darter which was a surprise as I have no pond, just a birdbath...

A family of speckled bush crickets has taken residence in my helleborus, Ive seen 3 males and two females so far. Male shown below...

A trip to Bembride ponds with Rob on the 15th was quiet on the birding front, except for 15 Little egrets and a heron all packed into a corner of the large pond, not seen that many in one place before.

Last night I dragged the wife out for a walk to Alverstone, we were hoping to catch something unusual maybe an owl or two? A chap we chatted to, saw a kingfisher half an hour previous, he told us to keep an eye open, but it wasnt our lucky night. So a nice walk, plenty of blackberries picked, and the scenery was lovely...

This morning I met up with Rog who I met on the wildaboutbritain website. As I wasnt meeting him till 9:30am I had a look around before we met. I had a brief glimpse of a jay, but no photos. I spotted a buzzard on a pole so got this digiscoped shot through my scope...

We had a good old chat about cameras, wildlife, lenses, and life in general. Not much to see this morning. A green woodpecker flew past at a rate of knots, and the butterflies seemed to love these Hemp agrimony flowers,  would love some in my garden!!

Fingers crossed for an indian summer!!!

A bugs life....

All quiet on the birding front lately, so my attention has wandered towards other subjects, namely, bugs and butterflies.Have spotted several different ladybirds in my own garden, 2-spot, 7-spot, 14 spot (below)...

Also the unwanted but beautiful harlequin..

I have an old holly tree stump in my garden, which has been invaded by aphids, this in turn attracts many ladybirds and hoverflies, mostly Hoverfly-Episyrphus blteatus (marmalade fly)...

 Had a lovely walk yesterday with the wife and our friends (Hi Tina and Peter!!) ...
Peter lifted up a sheet of plywood which someone had discarded and I captured the slow worms underneath, a total of 7 seeking shelter from the hot sun...

Peter was acting as my spotter, and he spotted this beautiful banded demoiselle ....

 The Common Red Soldier Beetle (Rhagonycha fulva) were happily making hay while the sun shone, precariously hanging from a grass stem....

The black ants were devouring aphids...

Back to birding with a visit to Alverstone hide, a lovely juvenile Robin was visiting the bird table...

Joined by a Great tit...

In the afternoon we drove to Luccombe and found a nice clearing to have our picnic, my attention soon wandered to the many butterflies feeding nearby, including the beautiful comma ...

and one of many Gatekeepers....





All in all, a lovely day to be outdoors!!



I love to go a-wandering ... Newtown and Yarmouth

Day off from work, and the wife at work, so decided on a visit to the west wight, Newtown NR and Yarmouth. A chance to try out my scope again, any excuse, lol....
Had a nice surprise at Newtown car park, at the entrance to the toilets, I noticed a swallows nest. This was right next to the toilet door, what a brave/daft bird to make a nest there. It was nice and sheltered but far from private, due to the visitors using the loo! I set my camera up a few yards away and took some film of the babies being fed. Also a few stills, trying not to disturb them, using my zoom lens. A very big highlight of the day.

Many more swallows were swooping over the estuary, once again trying the near impossible task of taking a picture of them in flight. This was the best I could manage ..

The parent swallows didnt seem to mind us being close to the nest, swooping over our heads to deliver the feed for the chicks.

Onto Yarmouth ponds and estuary. I got my first sighting of a curlew ...

A cormorant flew overhead ...

An Oystercatcher was next posing for me by the shoreline ...

A digiscoped pic of a Little Egret rounded off my day nicely ...

Note to self . . . Must update my year/life list on here soon!!

Back on the mainland... Petworth House and Park

Once again ventured onto the mainland, this time to West Sussex. We decided to walk to Petworth park, which was only a short walk away from where we were staying.
As we entered the park the deer were a lovely sight.

After a few minutes walking we reached the lake, where we spotted two egyptian geese, a first for us...

The canada geese were aplenty, with their juveniles, as were Greylags.

Wanted to take this one home!!

More pics of the beautiful canada geese ...

A wonderful day out :)
The following day we visited Pulborough brooks, West Sussex.
The day was overcast and drizzly, all the birds seemed to disappear to shelter. We decided to call it a day, and went to the cafe onsite for a cuppa.
Imagine our surprise when we caught sight of the feeders outside the cafe. They were a hive of activity, with several grey squirrels, and many other birds visiting. We had many more sightings here than on the reserve!
Everything scattered when this jay visited the table ...

Another pleasant day ....

...Recent wanderings..!!

Been busy recently, at last found time to fire off another blog!
Way back in may, Carol and myself had a trip on the mainland, and decided to visit Blashford lakes RSPB in Hampshire. Had a great day and the weather behaved. We spotted 25 birds, which we were pleased with, and first sightings of Wren, Sand Martin, Great crested Grebe, and Siskin. (Did I mention I had only been a birder since January this year?)
Had a nice view of a Jay, wish I had a longer lens on my camera!!

All in all a very enjoyable day, hope to do it again sometime...
On the 30th May, had a nice day out with my S.P.O.G. friends (Sandown posties ornithological group - Dont laugh !!) We went to Bembridge for the morning, had a job getting everyone up at 8am though.

We spent quite a while trying to photograph swifts flying by at the speed of sound!! We spotted 16 species, which was pretty good. This little egret was very photogenic and hung around for quite a while.

We then went to Brading Marshes RSPB, and spotted another 10 species.
A good day was had by all, a picture of my spog buddies is below...

June 8th... I visited Bembridge again and the nearby Hersey hide, where I once again photographed a little egret, this time using my new scope, an Opticron HR 80 GA ED model with Panasonic lumix FS7 camera and digiscope adaptor. This adds a whole new dimension to bird photograpy and viewing, looking forward to getting much closer views from now on.

How fast does a swallow fly?

I would say the answer to the title above is "Bloody fast"!!!
Yesterday I ventured across Brading marshes, and decided I would try and photograph the swallows flying. If you havnt tried it before its not easy! After about 20 minutes of losing them in my viewfinder and trying to keep them in focus I managed to get some record shots. They wont win any photography contests but at least I got something!

I also managed to see the common but beautiful magpie close up 

I have had to wait for 3 weeks for my Nikon camera to be repaired, which seemed like an eternity, so now im itching to get back into the field. Carol and I are going on a dawn chorus walk at 04:30 on sunday, not done that before so looking forward to it.

Another recent tick for me was a whitethroat, also taken on Brading marshes here on the island.

Also taken recently was a house sparrow. We shouldnt take these common birds for granted, they are just as beautiful as some of the rarities, and are becomming more scarce themselves nowadays.

Hopefully I will soon be ordering a new scope, an Opticron HR 80 GA ED model with zoom eyepiece, with tripod, waterproof case and digiscoping set-up. As you can imagine im itching to get started! More to follow when funds arrive!



Ducks galore !!

Recently I saw a picture taken by a workmate of a Mandarin duck, which took me by surprise as I didnt expect to see one on the Isle of Wight! He told me he saw it at a small pond just outside Brading so last tuesday I drove the couple of miles in the hope of seeing one of these beauties!
Imagine my surprise when I got there to see lots of unusual ducks most of which I had never seen before!
The light was absolutely perfect, filtering through the overhead willow. A tufted duck was closer than I had ever seen before.

A beautiful pintail looked splendid in the dappled shade

I was in my element, my love of photography and birds was being satisfied to the utmost! The male Red-crested pochard was next.

I finally spotted the beautiful male mandarin, what a beauty!!

I had such a good time I decided to return the following day and captured lots more images. The guy who has this collection of ducks certainly has a superb selection. Next up was a beautiful shelduck.

Ringed Teal...

Chiloe wigeon...

Wood duck...

Female mandarin...

Male Pochard...

And a couple which Im not sure of at the moment, if anyone knows what they are called? ...

So, I had a wonderful couple of afternoons at this newly discovered gem! Definately going to go back soon and see how they are doing  :)