TNC volunteer work day. There were hardly any weeds to pull. Didn't see anything new, unfortunately. Plenty of nice big ho'awa trees there.
Since it was a short volunteer day I went over to visit Manuka Natural Area Reserve for the first time. It's quite a bit different than anywhere I usually go. Dry leeward forest, with a lot of olopua, papala kepau, alahe'e, 'akia, ho'awa, kopiko, hame, etc. Also far more mosquitoes than I've ever encountered anywhere else on Hawai'i - it was...
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It's not quite the weather I've seen on the UK forecasts but we've had hail showers here today and it's not got above 8C. Managed to check the flooded fields this morning though and there was a smattering of passage waders--11 Greensand , 2 ruff, 6 snipe, 3 redshanks and the first LRP of the year . No wildfowl today except for a few mallard which nevertheless will be genuine migrants. A black kite was flying around--perhaps the same bird as earlier in the week The swallows were managing to...
Today's rain meant no birding but it should help swell the many rivers around here. A few such as the Bandiat are already over their banks and this is good news for the migrants especially waders and wildfowl which stop over for a few days. These mainly seasonal rivers reurn to cultivated land by early summer but for a few weeks some unusual species for these parts can turn up. This week there were a few redshanks and green sandpipers paddling on the edge of a flooded road, and on Tuesday a...
Paid my first visit to Slimbridge in about 20 years today - and it was brilliant, a thoroughly enjoyable day out and some nice new species to add to my list (which now stands at 38...!)
Not counting the more unremarkable species (or the ones that weren't actually wild!), we saw plenty of Teal and Shelduck, four Lapwings, about five Greylag Geese, a few Canada Geese, five or so Tufted Ducks, and a load of Wigeon. Also saw one Shoveler, which was good (quite close to the hide). Waited in vain...
hi,
I just came back from a 6 days bird guiding tour following the traditional birding route with an extra birding patch just before we leave for the airport. You can check out a thread which I posted on http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=1155794#post1155794.
I have included videos taken through digiscoping / videoscoping.
It's still rainy...so naturally I visited the rainforest. A stenogyne I was monitoring flowered. I was expecting it to be s. scrophularioides, since The Manual says s. macanthra should be very tomentose, and these are quite glabrous. Well, just to make things difficult, the flowers popped out and the corollas match s. macanthra.
Sadly, one of the little cyanea platyphylla died. Another that's barely more than a stick lost its only leaf, but seems to be budding out several more new...
Hello all you bird enthusiasts out there ! Probably been asked a 1000 times already but there,s always a different view from someone ,but nonetheless i am looking to buy a lense at a reasonable price with a bit more range than my 400 mm sigma can anyone tell which is the better lense for whatever reason and why ,canon equipment is great but the good stuff is out of my price range .The only thing that puts me off the sigma is weight really
Spent a couple of hours on my local patch this morning, and got few good sightings. Had barely left the house when I saw a Kestrel up in the trees. At the point where the hill really gets going I saw three Jays, one of which had its crown feathers raised and generally looked a bit scruffier that the other two. At the old quarry there was a flock of Stock Doves, and a large group of Jackdaws. Also got a great view of a Buzzard scouting around near the top of the hill. On the field at the top...
Well, here I am, set up at the caravan. The weather isn't great (in fact it's aweful!)
I decided to set my camera gear up and sit out for a couple of hours. I set the perch amongst the daffodils and baited it with a few maggots. The only bird interested was the robin, but I was happy with the result. (See the gallery).
I'm very pleased to have sorted out how to use off-camera FP flash. It means I can use a shutter speed of 500th of a second to freeze the motion, even though the Canon 300D...
Hello!
It's being quite a while that I'm having a BLOG at WORDPRESS.
There I had been posting my experience of being a Pioneer Birder, also, at the Brazilian Northeast.
http://brazilianpioneerbirder.wordpress.com/
Have a nice week!
Paulo Boute.
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend - Read: Seeing Birds!!!
This weekend I had been thinking a lot about the decision that me and my wife, Marluce, took last year in opening & operating a branch office at the city of Aracajú, at the State of Sergipe.
Even double checking in different aspects/angles that decision - I could get just one single answer: We did the right thing!
The Brazilian Northeast is a very complex area of Brazil, with the largest concentration of States...
Another wet day, so I returned to the Volcano Park to find some more new plant species. I went out on Hilina Pali Road to see what was growing in the dry forest. Answer: a whole lot of alien firetree. Yuck! I did find a good number of ko'oko'olau and dubautia, and a few naupaka.
A thunderstorm rolled in, so I moved down to the Mauna Ulu lava flows to see if I could find some interesting plants along the Pali. I walked across the lava field to visit a kipuka, but it turned out to...
Saturday 16th March was to be the local group’s fieldtrip up the Northumberland coast to Low Newton and Long Nanny. According to the weather forecast it was to be wet, but just how wet depended upon which forecast one had watched. Well we did set off from Newcastle in rain, but nothing that would put a genuine birder off their stride and we were at Low Newton in an hour. Getting off the coach I decided that water proof trousers were not yet required as there was barely a light drizzle and...
The drought has ended, so I had to head to the leeward side of things to get out of the fog and rain. This afforded me a good opportunity to go to the Volcano Park and get some dry forest plant photos I'm missing - most importantly the exceedingly rare hibiscadelphus! (A plant so ugly I thought it was a nasty weed on my last visit, but in fact it is the jewel of Kipuka Puaulu!)
Kipuka Puaulu is often called "Bird Park", but this is misleading. I think the name remains from a former era...
Well, here goes. I've decided to start a blog to follow my attempts at bird photography this year.
At the moment I am sat in the conservatory at home watching the birds in the garden. The collared doves are getting very amorous and the blackbird is collecting grass. Spring is in the air.
I have my camera set up with a long cable release, focussed on a branch at the bottom of the garden. hidden on the back of the branch is a tiny plastic pot with some "pinkies" (small maggots) in the pot.
The...
I scouted some side trails and transects in Pu'u Maka'ala NAR's Army Road complex. I visited one of the colonies of 'aku, which had several adults. There was also quite a bit of olona in the same area, along with some plantings of phyllostegia floribunda and pilo kea. I was hoping to see some of the rumored 'anunu, but did not see any. There were some nasty chittery northern cardinals hanging around - not sure what it is they like to eat in that area.
Just a quick one on 14th March to mark the coming spring. On the way to the shops along with Dandelions and Daisies I stumbled across two plants which are new for my list Early Forgetmenot Myosotis ramosissima and Common Fumitory Fumaria officinalis.
Just because I've packed all my photographic gear away ready for tomorrow, the wind has dropped, the sun is shining and I've just seen the first goldfinch of the winter sitting at a feeder in the garden! It's too late to get it all out again now and I think the wife would be rather annoyed if I left her to the rest of the packing. Still, there's always tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.|:d|
Winter visitors were still lingering around this week with Wallcreeper and Redpoll reported. The usual Red-breasted and Lesser White-fronted Geese were seen at several places, although Red-breasts were observed in smaller numbers.
A lone Lapland Bunting was observed away from its traditional wintering grounds, probably a bird on migration.
Woodcocks are migrating in full swing, which attracts both birders and hunters to the forests.
Moustached Warblers are already singing in the sedges...
Today I went looking to Beeley Wood to look for woodpeckers. Knowing the area had all three species present I set a challenge to see all three species in one morning - great spotted (easy), green (medium) and lesser spotted (hard).
The plan was to catch the bus to Oughtibridge and start from there, but due to me missing the bus due to a ridiculous factual error on the “My Next Bus” text service (telling me the 57 stopped at a bus stop it didn’t even go past!), I decided to get the tram to...
This is my 4th trip up to Fraser's Hill (3 times for bird watching and 1 time for trekking). It was misty when we reached the hill station. Although it was misty, I considered today as the best day ever for birding in a misty condition. We did not get many birds but still the birds we found were quality birds (very subjective, eh?). Nevermind. The last bird we saw before leaving the hill station is the Red-headed Trogon (first for this year). And i must mentioned my lifer that i managed...
Well, that's all my photographic gear packed away ready for the weekend. I'll be moving to my caravan on Saturday for at least two weeks. The idea is to put into practice the methods I have been experimenting with this winter in the garden.
Retirement is great! I get to fish and photograph all day long. That is when I'm not playing golf.
You could say I am a full time photographer now, as I get to do it every day of the week.
I finished off yesterday getting the photograph I was after in...
Kolea are such silly birds. They stake out little territories in open areas like parking lots and lawns. Sometimes they'll stand in a lawn on one of the busiest corners in town and just watch the traffic buzz by all day. Last night when I left the office there was a kolea standing in the parking spot next to my car. He didn't budge at all, though he flinched every time I made a loud noise like shutting the door or starting the car. As I drove away he was still standing there in his...
It was supposed to be a raging storm at lunchtime, and yet it was actually calm enough to pick out a porpoise arking through the waves. Also had the first Gannet of the year and a Kestrel north over the sea that may have been on passage.
One of the bulldozed trails in the Army Road area actually goes about three times further into the heart of the Army Road rectangle than I had previously thought. I had previously stopped at the end of the straight section of the road, and had missed a slight jog to the West that was apparently overgrown with 'uluhe at the time. It's obvious on the satellite image after you know where it goes - my GPS track follows an obvious trail of deforestation that I would have assumed was just an...
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