Saturday 30 July 2011

Urban Birding

Hi readers,

My family and I have just returned back from a days birding in the parks of London.  We decided to visit Regants park, as you may know, Regents park  has some ornamental  birds.  Although there are captive birds, there are also many wild birds.  It is also a good place to get a close encounter to birds you may not usually see.  Regants Park is also famous for its wild herons nesting in the surrounding trees of the park.  These are some of my best shots of the day.

Jamie Croft




Grey Heron
Canada Goose
Carrion Crow
Grey Heron

Thursday 28 July 2011

Scout camp to biblins site

From Saturday  to Tuesday we both went on a scout camp to possibly the most beautiful camp site in Britain. The journey took 4 long hours but the views were spectacular. As it was near Wales there was birds of prey souring every were. There was rolling hills and trees as far as you could see. On the first day we set up base camp and set of for a walk to Syman's yat. Here was a short section of rapids that we were about to go down the next day. A buzzard perching on a branch very close enabled us to see actually how big these enormous birds are.


The next day we canoed 10 miles on the river Wye. The river was so calm but still there was a current due to the various rapids at curtain points. As we were paddling, there was over 20 Mandarin ducks right next to us some even juveniles. After some hours we eventually arrived at the big rapids. As we waited at the top, our hearts were pounding, we thought to our selves would we make it out wet or dry? Either wouldn't have mattered as the sun was shining brightly. As we paddled towards the rapids the current draged us closer, the rapids chucked us a round like a rag doll but we made it out safely. The following day we went to peddelabike which is situated in a different part of the of forest of Dean. We hired bikes and set out along there challenging paths seeing more red kites and kestrels. As well as seeing blackcaps and nuthatches. To finish the day of we saw a kingfisher fly by where we was staying. It was a great holiday and defiantly go again.


Young Birders.

Thursday 7 July 2011

Norfolk

Last weekend for my dads birthday we went to two places in Norfolk. Pensthorpe and the Broads. The first day was the broads and we hired out an old looking boat that looked at if it was about to fall apart! We set of seeing great crested grebe and grey heron flew over. As my brother through some bread over for the the ducks another heron flew over. The birds where attracted by the bread and got some close views of mute swan and coot fighting.

The second day we went to Pensthorpe which is were spring watch was filmed a few years ago. we took a the opportunity to do a safari type tour around the the resurve seeing red legged partridge and skylarks singing high in the sky. We took a look at the scrapes seeing avocets, oystercatcher and common sandpiper.

It was a great weekend and would definitely recommend them to any visiting Norfolk.

Matthew Foakes