Teal (Annas crecca) One bonus about birding is that you can do it almost anywhere so the Covid-19 lockdown produced an unexpected challenge. How many species of birds could keen birders see or hear from their gardens? And for those without gardens – from their windows? To find out, I was among 61 birders ...
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White-tailed Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) I was out early for something rather special. A White-tailed Sea Eagle. In Buckinghamshire. Not the place you might expect to see such a bird. But one had been seen in the vicinity coming down to a field to eat cattle cake. As we gazed over rolling farmland that ...
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Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) Early May, a Surrey woodland floor blazing with bluebells, fresh lime-coloured leaves emerging from the beeches, and rafts of sunlight shining down through the fast disappearing spaces of the canopy. And to compliment the wonder of it all, an amazing voice erupts, dwarfing the choir of ...
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Mandarin (Aix galericulata) I had a big surprise when I was checking to see if an old Tawny Owl nesting box had attracted any takers. It had never had anything trying to raise a family in it and was starting to get a bit flimsy with age. The box was about three metres up a Scot’s Pine tree on the edge of a ...
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Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis) Heads up! The troops are on their way and will soon be passing by. Those in the advance guard this month often travel solo or in pairs. But reinforcements are already on their way and we can expect a steady trickle of the cavalry over the next few weeks in the Surrey Hills. ...
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Brown Babblers (Turdoides plebejus) Many of the birds we see in Cranleigh remind me of some of us – they sensibly get away from it all and take a warm winter break further south. So I thought it would be fun to see what life is like for them at this time of the year in their vastly different environment. I ...
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Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) If you had your eyes set on a 2020 vision this month, and want to see something often overlooked, then why not kick off the New Year with a trip down on the beech? Among the trees I mean, not by the seaside – although that is an increasingly popular destination on 1 January ...
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Robin (Erithacus rubecula) Birding can have its laughs and crazy moments. Sometimes it’s truly crackers. Like the time I was on the Isles of Scilly and near panic ensued after a once-in-a-lifetime bird, a Nighthawk from America, was reported resting in a field. People rushed to get to the site and were ...
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Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) The apples are ready and now I’m waiting for the ‘chock-a-chock chock’. No, it’s not some sort of sweet fireworks night treat for the kids but it is my recipe to attract a rather shy type of thrush to the garden. Last month I wrote about the autumn’s rusty tones arriving with the ...
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What a pretty, innocent, and fresh-looking face. There I was, only feet away from a Redwing on the pavement. The ‘go faster’ white stripe above the eye was clear to see. But obviously in this case it had failed to work because this member of the thrush family had been nabbed, perishing at the talons of one of the ...
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