Young Birder (6 Viewers)

Great blog Liam, nice Barn owls!

Liam: said:

Hi guys,
Well I thought I would introduce myself my name is Liam and I am 16 years old still at school. I have been birding for just under 6 months so not long but I am more into the photography side of things. Check out my blog if your interested:
http://sussexbirdphotography.blogspot.com/

Thanks.

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Hi Liam, welcome to Birdforum, I'm of a similiar age as you and keen photographer too:t:
What I found when I started out birding a few years back was that it's hard to get the birding/photography balance right, so after initially being more of a photographer, I then had a manic autumn learning up on my birds, so I could be equally a Birder/photgrapher. It's the best way :t:

cheers
Steve

ps; nice blog mate, fancy swapping links?

Thanks nick.
Steve I think I might follow that advice because at the moment I have quite a large amount of knowledge on the birds I have photographed but some mostly common birds I know nothing about.

I will put your blog link on mine now.
Thanks.

Liam: said:

Thanks nick.
Steve I think I might follow that advice because at the moment I have quite a large amount of knowledge on the birds I have photographed but some mostly common birds I know nothing about.

I will put your blog link on mine now.
Thanks.

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Cheers Liam, i've put a link up to your blog as well from mine:t:

Well done liam - nice blog.:t:
David - I havent had that many migrants this year but my list has just hit 151. Summer migrants so far include the obvious chiffchaff, blackcap, willow warbler, wheatear, sand martin, swallow (still havnt had house martin). Also had montagu's harrier at holme about a week ago! :eat:
What's your life list on now david?

Mines at a static 192 Simeon, has been since February. My excuse is I didn't have any luck on the target winter lifers I wanted and am waiting for Lesser Whitethroat and Gropper to arrive in Britain and my life list plus I'm focussing more on year listing this year. Hopefully have a second chance with those winter specialities later this year.
Anyway it looks like one won't be making it onto my list for a long time anymore, Dark eyed Junco, I knew it was gonna go.

Hi Liam, welcome to the thread and nice blog . I am not as keen I was on the photography side of things, I suppose its because photoshop keeps breaking down and my camera and I were seperated for a month or two this year. I find now that I don't take my camera out as often as I used to and if I do its in my bag most of the time.

Out of intrest dave...whats up with the name change again?

Cool. Well done with the life list. Keep it up! I'm currently on 280 after a lot of twitching this year so far (4 lifers in January; Lesser Scaup, White-Crowned Sparrow, Great-White Egret, Ring-Billed Gull!). But I havent had any since...dipped the bluethroat:C But I have been birding for a lot longer I think - 10th year...
Steve, what's your life list on at the moment and how long have you been birding?

mr.sim said:

Steve, what's your life list on at the moment and how long have you been birding?

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232, AKA, 8th in defence i've only been seriously birding for about two years and have only been listing birds 'post lapse' as in, I haven't listed birds I saw when I was a lot younger and CANT remember (eg, Whimbrel and apparently my dad says I found a pec sand on the beach at minsmere(?) but I can't quite believe that or remember it) but I have included birds I saw and can remember (eg, Sammy the Stilt and Golden and White tailed Eagles) I'm not much of a twitcher as I hate crowds although I have gone for some birds like The Sparrow and the lineatus Black Kite last year in lincs (before it became an escape for flying in to norfolk )...hmm...actually that was one of my favourite twitches, when we pulled up at the site the only people there were driving away, telling us it wasn't there, so consulting the map with my dad, we drive round to another car park on the coast, walk along the sea wall, sit on the bank and get great views of the bird, ours was the only car in the car park and we saw no one down their on the way to the Kite, on the way back we were passed by crowds and the car park was heaving. Some, more, lazy birders were viewing from the car park and were talking about how people couldn't see it further down the sea wall and what fantastic views they'd had. Utter rubbish, distance messes with perspective!
I think my other favourite twitch was the Wells/Warham Great white Egrets last october (or was it september?) the views were distant, but the bird unmistakeable, iconic and endearing. Best thing was, there were no other birders! So in a way almost self found...:smoke:

So mr.sim...(can I just call you Simeon?) (and others I suppose)...what was your favourite twitch and why?

I dont mind what you call me. Everyone at school calls me sim. I like twitches when theres no-one there, because you have the challenge of re-finding the bird. But when you don't succeed its annoying:C. I also like massive twitches if you're garunteed to get the bird. Like the sparrow at cley:t:. Once it had been seen once that morning I knew I would see it. But I loved the atmosphere too. We got there just as it turned light and birders were pouring out of their cars in absolute silence! There were already about 40 people there by the time we got there, so there was still space to see the bird. When you're at the back of the crowd, it sucks! By the time we left Cley, at least 200 people were there as it was the first saturday! I like the atmosphere, but some twitchers are really irresponsible. When the sparrow was first seen that day, everyone agreed beforehand not to rush to the gate, but guess what - about 3 people rushed to the gate and blocked me from viewing the bird!:C
My favourite twitch was probably either the sparrow at cley or the Killdeer in Shetland last October. We planned the trip in Easter holidays - way before-hand. Then the Killdeer turned up and we started dreaming about what we might get!o By August, we were starting to hope the bird would stay there and thinking that it would be really bad if it left now...By the time the trip arrived we were getting really worried about what we would do if the bird left that night etc. (I would probably have jumped off the ferry into the North Sea - or not, considering the storm we were in!:eek! (see our website for the full trip report by the way)
When the day arrived we were really excited and left early. After searching for about 2 hours we were getting really worried as the bird wasnt getting seen every day, and we probably only had 2 chances to see it.:-C We were sitting getting bored - Connor was lying down virtually asleep, I was jumping over ditches (dont know why:-O), Matt was sitting talking to this local guy that had arrived (he had already seen it about 50 times probably) and James was still scanning in hope!
Suddenly James goes "Ive got it" in a calm voice and we all leap up and rush to his scope to see it. We were really pleased and got a few record shots. It was right in front of us! In flight, it looked really big and as it was with a group of Ringed Plovers, it looked quite like a small falcon chasing them!
We also had the bonus of getting the White-Rumped Sandpiper that had been there the previous week, but not seen since. It flew onto the shore and then flew off again, showing its white rump!:t:
The main highlights on that trip to Shetland were the Killdeer, White-Rumped Sandpiper, Ring-Necked Duck, Yellow-Browed Warbler (self found) and Richards Pipit (self found).
So thats probably my favourite twitch, buts its on a massive scale. My favourite smaller scale twitch would have to be the sparrow.

Wow...that story was great! It was really interesting to hear about people flocking (I couldn't resist) to see a bird, that over here, is such a common one.

Aren't Killdeer great birds! I have a pair that might nest on my field, and I've got some good shots. They are really neat birds.

Steve: Sorry I haven't gotten back to you on your photo quizzes. I haven't had the time to sit down and look at the birds. It would be faster if I had a Europe bird guide. I will be getting one is about a week.
So far, the quizzes I got are the easy ones, like Sisken, Long-tailed Tit, etc...

Hi
Interesting stories and some gr8 birds!
My favourite twitch ( if you can call it so) was when I went very early to a Nature Reserve with 2 other birders to get Penduline Tits. Right after dawn we saw four of them in the reeds, later we even ringed a beatiful adult male. It was the 1st time they had been seen since 1995. :t:
It was the best birding day i 've had so far with 9 new species including the tits, night heron, wryneck, YELLOW BROWED WARBLER, Reed bunting and some more common birds that i should have seen before.
Last time i twitched i dipped - came 45 minutes too late to see Spoonbill. Then after going around the reserve i went to a nrearby wooded hill and just as i was there the spoonbill came down for a very short while:-C and left before i returned. Hoopoe, Lesser kestrel & Marsh Sand. compensated...

Visiting my local patch this evening... Fingers crossed for my first pied flycatcher of the year...
Happy birding to you all! Martin

Cool! You'll get spoonbill one day! On the other hand, I'd happily kill Steve for the other birds you got that day! What's it like birding in Malta, cos I heard the place is birdless (from a non-birder) - do you just have to know where to look? Or is it all migrant watching?

jimmyg said:

On the other hand, I'd happily kill Steve for the other birds you got that day!

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Feel free i've been a home with my cousins (5+7 little devils i'm battered and bruised) and just found out about the Black Kite over bury st ed on rba...:-C:C

Beaten up by your cousins again?!!! I blame the parents.

At least you're not in Greece while there's a little crake on your doorstep back at home!|;|

Poor old Jyothi ||

Unlucky Simon :-C Have you had Killdeer before?
It took us 2 hours to find the bird but we were determined to see it! Apparently the best time to view it was 2 hours either side of high tide.
Never mind...there'll be plenty more:t:
What else did you get and when were you there?

Nope, Killdeer still eludes me in Britain (I've missed the two recent Norfolk birds by days through being abroad too)! I should really have headed back to the Virkie one on the occassion my mates phoned me to say they were watching it, but I was out north of Toab so couldn't be bothered (more focussed on trying to find stuff).
Not too much to complain about though - the other stuff we all saw is here...
http://www.freewebs.com/punkbirder/shetland07.htm
Are the YNB doing another assault this autumn then?

We tried to persuade our transport suppliers, but sadly we won't be.:-C

I don't know how you lot managed to get all that amazing stuff!!!!!! We ID'd pretty much every bird we saw (using several... :scribe:... 'effective'... methods of making sure we saw everything there) and only managed to dig out Yellow-browed warbler and cruddy views of a Richard's pipit! Guess the Punks just got the skills:t:

The difference a week makes is astounding!

It was great for twitching though, and we had a brilliant time. Are you lot going again?

This year Sim and I are thinking of perhaps walking the Cornwall area, aiming for Cirl bunting, shearwaters, and anything else classy that's not on our lists (a rather large bracket)! Any tips... please?