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I saw birdies!
I spent the weekend birding with my Dad, all along the North Norfolk coast.
I a little less than two days, despite howling winds, biting chills and the first proper snowfalls for years, we clocked up 73 species.
Personal highlights were:
I took photos, but most are blurred by movement and extreme zooming. Others I didn't try because it was too hard to hold the camera still in the wind, or too hard to keep the lens clear enough of snow to take pictures.
I a little less than two days, despite howling winds, biting chills and the first proper snowfalls for years, we clocked up 73 species.
Personal highlights were:
- Glaucous gull
- Tree creeper
- Water rail
- Snow Bunting
- Blue, Coal, Great and Long-tail tits all in the same bush
I took photos, but most are blurred by movement and extreme zooming. Others I didn't try because it was too hard to hold the camera still in the wind, or too hard to keep the lens clear enough of snow to take pictures.
Comments
12 years ago
Wow! That stone really looks like an egg! :-O
12 years ago
Cool, but i personaly feel that birdwatching gets boring after an hour or so
Reply 12 years ago
Potayto, potahto. It depends what you're looking for, and where you're looking. I'm lucky to have a lot of good sites within a day's drive, including several dedicated reserves.
Reply 12 years ago
I sometimes see more interesting sites by accident then by searching. I remember one time on the way home from the grocer's, my wife DEMANDED that I pull over and go back up the road a piece. I protested all the way to the next light (about 3/4 of a block), but then gave in. I turned up into the side street where she had seen something, but wouldn't tell me what (later I found out she didn't know what it was).
As I slowly came back the road, along side the road and on the other side (I was driving on the British side so as not to scare him/her away) was a beautiful young Golden Eagle eating a vole. We must have sat there, just half the width of the road away from it, for about 5 minutes or more, when we noticed people from the gas station nearby were starting to wonder what we were looking at. Fearing too great a crowd might interrupt the creature's lunch, we moved on. But I will never forget just how beautiful he was. I looked him up online to make sure and yes, it was a young Golden Eagle, How I would love to see him fully grown now. And he was so near to the city too.
Reply 12 years ago
O!
Reply 12 years ago
I am just glad I finally gave in to my wife's insistence :-)
I have probably mentioned that story before, haven't I?
Reply 12 years ago
Not to me.
12 years ago
Wow that is a peaceful site
12 years ago
Very cool! Quite personally I've never felt inspired to sit in the cold and look at birds of the avian class anyways.......
Reply 12 years ago
Ah, that's where you go wrong - you should stand(out in the blasting snow at several degrees below zero, having trouble standing still enough to see straight...)
Reply 12 years ago
... You sir, are barmy.
Reply 12 years ago
And proud of it!
12 years ago
I would have been more interested in the dead seal. "Is it fresh? How far to the local hardware store?"
Reply 12 years ago
If I'd disturbed the seal, the gull would have left, and I would have had all my knees broken by people with expensive binoculars.
Reply 12 years ago
"all"? Fascinating...
Reply 12 years ago
He has no elbows...
Reply 12 years ago
xD
Reply 12 years ago
LOL I missed that one on first reading so he has more then 2 knees, eh, I wonder what planet....oh never mind. ;-)
Reply 12 years ago
Hook, line and sinker... ;-)
12 years ago
'Not an egg, just a stone' - kiteman There all cool! Thanks for sharing.
Reply 12 years ago
:-)
12 years ago
Your Snow Bunting is a cutie. :-)
Reply 12 years ago
There were a flock of over a hundred further up the coast, but they wouldn't settle for a photo (there were dog-walkers in the area). This one was supposed to be with a flock of 40, but only 4 came out to play. It came within about 10 feet, but was such a twitchy thing, it's a pain to get a sharp image.
Reply 12 years ago
I'll bet, even with a really fast camera. But you did a really good job of it.
Reply 12 years ago
...eventually. That's the joy of digital, though - you can keep shooting away until you get it right.
Reply 12 years ago
...or, if you are like me, until the batteries go dead LOL
12 years ago
Wait wait wait, is this you and your dad, or is this Roger-X using your account, I can't tell.
Reply 12 years ago
This is me, Kiteman, posting about a trip with my father (Kitedad?).
Roger-X finds birdwatching boring, and would have absolutely hated this trip, stood in a howling gale on the beach (I had to shelter behind a WWII pill-box to keep the camera steady enough to take the picture of the gull).
Reply 12 years ago
Ah, he doesn't know what he is missing in life then :-) Maybe later on he'll understand...
12 years ago
Did you know that your local W.H.Smith doesn't have gale-force winds, and likely has less blurry pictures of your favorite avian species? Just a thought from a non-birder :-)
Reply 12 years ago
Ah, but where's the challenge? The WHSmith images don't move, react, or display unusual behaviours (like the kestrel we found sheltered on a low fence - kestrels never use low fences as perches), and they don't have that delicious chance of something that shouldn't be there.
Trying to find a "black" Brent goose in a flock of "normal" Brent geese is a challenge on a par with doing a "Where's Wally?" with a woolly hat pulled down over your eyes, since "normal" Brents are also black...
Reply 12 years ago
Oh, you're talking about the birds! I was thinking of the customers :-)
12 years ago
Oh, did I mention -- congratulations on a successful outing!