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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Yorkshire Birding (19 Viewers)

While on the commute this morning I was astounded to see 2 red-legged partridges run across Selby Road close to the Garforth roundabout. Quite unruffled by the traffic, they shot across the road and sauntered up the drive to the new business park close to the George pub.
 
Third time lucky for me , for the Chipping Norton pigeon this morning heheh :t:
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Had intended to go looking for lesser peckers this morning but still shaking off a cold and couldn't get going. Instead went for a walk round 27 this afternoon, a few blue, great and long tailed tits, a moorhen, 20+ pairs of rooks in the rookery, bullfinch, moorhen, 3 jays, pleased with the first mipits of the year up there I was making for the car when I caught sight of a small bird catching flies in the tree tops - chiffchaff, my first summer migrant of the year. It even went into subsong, marvellous!
 

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I went to Potteric Carr today and saw a fairly large bat flying low over the water on piper marsh in the middle of the day, around 12:30. Bloke in hide said that it could be a daubentons bat, i hav'nt got clue what kind it was but it was a pleasant surprise to see it
 
I went to Potteric Carr today and saw a fairly large bat flying low over the water on piper marsh in the middle of the day, around 12:30. Bloke in hide said that it could be a daubentons bat, i hav'nt got clue what kind it was but it was a pleasant surprise to see it

The description as fairly large even in daylight suggests noctule.
 
North Yorks

I had a trip up to North Yorks this morning-single barn owl near Beeford was the highlight of the drive up.
I went to Scalby first for some shots of the wigeon-numbers have decreased dramatically since mid winter but they were still very obliging.
I went to the harbour and had a very brief encounter with the Iceland Gull then on to Holbeck but the Meds didn't play ball.
Finished up at Barmston and the highlight was an obliging flock of sanderling.
very little else of note.
For anyone interested there are more shots on the blog.
 

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sorry but really? the pollen has stuck to its bill during migration??? despite all the strong winds and airflows and such, its really more likely that the pollen has stuck than its found the odd flower somewhere nearby?
and im not sure i can see pollen. Dont think there's any real way to tell if its a migrant or not, other than a ringed bird
 
Pretty confident it's a migrant. Not seen it over winter and if you look closely it has pollen stuck to feathers above the bill. Nowt flowering round these parts.

Interestingly we also had a singing Chiffchaff reported today at Swilly after no winter records.

I think the main source of pollen at the moment is willow which has been in flower for a week or so round here.
 
isn't song usually governed by daylight length? ie until there's a certain amount of daylight a bird will not start singing, so you could have bird on site but not seen until the daylight length increases enough to bring on singing and then the bird is 'found'. Just a thought...
 
sorry but really? the pollen has stuck to its bill during migration??? despite all the strong winds and airflows and such, its really more likely that the pollen has stuck than its found the odd flower somewhere nearby?
and im not sure i can see pollen. Dont think there's any real way to tell if its a migrant or not, other than a ringed bird

Probably is no way of telling unless it's a ringed bird, never said it was definitely so and I couldn't give a monkeys if it's been in Cornwall - it's not been on my patch.

Early migrants often turn up with pollen stuck to the feathers above the bill, caught whilst sticking their heads in flowers, not rubbing up against pussy willows. In the field the bird clearly had a small amount of matting of these feathers so a distant shot overules field observation? There's an extreme example at the end of the video here;
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheBaldIbis?feature=chclk#p/u/28/XsCyuHfYdSY
 
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apologies for the grumpy post jim, its been a long day, hope no offence was caused. didn't realise about this pollen carrying, good to know.

purely for the enlightenment of my ignorance, rather than challenging your statement, is there evidence for migrants often feeding on flowers and arriving with pollen, just that it would seem likely that chiffy's would be feeding in flowering willows as more insects?

Thanks Ollie

(also in my defence, and the only crappy bit of defence i'll extend, your post did imply you had seen the pollen on the photo, which im not sure i can see, certainly not going to challenge the superiority of field views over a one-off photo, im with you all the way on that.)
 
Spring Is Coming

Whilst it seems as though the sun will never shine again - it hasn't much since I got the camera, I thought I'd try and cheer everyone up as I've just seen Spring - it's only one hour fifty minutes away.

I visited my daughter in Porto, and she has a friend who owns a massive farm near Viana in the north. I had licence to wander round the farm at will.

It was our Spring only a few weeks earlier - the Sheep all had lambs. Several swallows had just arrived chasing each other round before settling down to roost. Serin were in song everywhere. Blackcap were in song, and these were taking advantage of pollen in early flowers. A Brimstone was on the wing, plus several what I assumed were Large Whites. All these years of birding and it was the first time I'd heard Black Redstart sing - for those who haven't heard it, it's odd - there's a bit at the end where it sounds like someone is crunching up a paper bag.

It was a fresh Spring-like warmth. When the sun came out at timers you'd have been happy with the weather as English summer weather. However, there were also spells when it was freezing - sitting in the stand watching FC Porto being one of them - but generally just like our Spring.

Going back to the farm in May so looking forward to that.
 

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