You are browsing the archives of 2006 April.

Arrivals and Rivals: a birding oddity. Adrian Riley (Brambleby Books, 2004)

The blurb on the back of this esoteric but enjoyable book describes its contents as being “all about determination, ‘true grit’ and the obsessional desire to become the top birder in the British Isles”.

It’s not really about that actually - it is indeed all about […]

My brother Nial, Director of the conservation organisation Birds Korea, took this photograph of a dead Great Knot at Saemangeum yesterday and I think it’s one of the most poignant photographs I’ve ever seen. I’ve been thinking how to explain why it affected me so much, and the word that kept coming to me was […]

I’ve been mailed quite a few times asking me which camera I use and whether I’m happy with it. The answer is that I use a Canon 20D with a 100-400mm L lens and yes I am), and after owning it for fourteen months I thought it was about time I reviewed it…[NB - […]

1st summer Franklin’s Gull Larus pipixcan
Devon, UK. 26 April 2006
 
“Hey buddy, d’you know which way North America’s at?”
 
Following hard on the heels of my trip to South Wales with Jo yesterday, I was obviously still in the mood to “go wild” and decided to go and see a 1st summer Franklin’s Gull Larus pipixcan […]

I posted this report on the Birds Korea website this morning: at the end of the report, written by my brother Nial, Director of Birds Korea, he mentions that the “outstanding highlight” was 35 Nordmann’s Greenshanks Tringa guttifer seen in a single scan during the Birds Korea/AWSG joint Saemangeum Shorebird Monitoring Programme. Have a quick […]

The first wave of the vernal avian invasion has the New York area in a vise. Bold Palm Warbler field generals are currently preparing local woodlands for the massive passerine push to follow. Winter soldiers are most definitely on the wane, but I spotted a few White-throated Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers hanging back this weekend, […]

Crag Martins and Rock Martins Ptyonoprogne rupestris and P. fuligula
21 April 2006, Doha, Qatar
 
After a morning’s birding in Doha, Qatar I found a small flock of Martins flying around the outside of the hotel I was staying at.

At first glance - while I raced to get the camera settings set for photographing rapidly flying birds […]

Doha, Qatar
21 April 2006
 

View from my hotel room across West Bay towards Doha

 
A quick day’s birding in Doha, Qatar - another of the Middle East’s new building sites. Like Dubai and Kuwait the skyline here is changing at a remarkable rate: new roads are going nowhere this week but to newly-built housing estates the next, […]

Everyone knows that the difference between good birding and truly great birding often depends on one’s ability to identify birdsong. Unfortunately, many bird watchers, myself included, are fairly skilled at the watching part but not so hot with the listening and identifying. Help has finally arrived in the form of a brilliant piece of birding […]

Remember the avian flu ‘outbreak’ in Suffolk in early February this year? The outbreak took place around February 2nd/3rd in a sealed unit on one of giant food-processing company Bernard Matthews’ (BM) turkey farms. The snapping of knee-jerks began to be heard across the media, and as usual migratory birds were blamed for the […]