UKH

Been just over a year since I started bird watching/bird photography. Seeing a change in species and behaviour; Skylark up on the wing singing, Lapwings displaying more, Grey Herons on nests, Song Thrushes in larger numbers and such like.

1. Plenty of Curlew about and this one wasn’t bothered by me walking nearby.

2. Nearest I’ve been to a Kestrel was not long after taking that long distance zoomed in shot. Another photographer was taking photos very close to it so I left so as not to disturb. Some 300m away I was walking around some scrub and was met by the Kestrel flying towards me. It stopped (briefly) on a tree only 10 m away before flying off again. If only I had had the camera ready! Spoke to the other photographer later and he had got impressive close shots and said he had been photographing the Kestrel for 30 mins.

3. A L Egret has arrived back to where I saw my first one last year.

4. Impressive camouflage of the Snipe. Took me a while to see the third one. There were 5 in total feeding.

5. Nearly missed the Bar-tailed Godwit!! I think all the others are Grey Plovers, but someone can correct me on that.

Took me a while to see the first!
(It's very much the sort of picture I would have ended up with if I'd been trying to photograph the birds in the water.)

We get those white herons here in SW France, but they are occasional (away from water). Unlike the littler egret - always gregarious. A joy to see in flight. My sightings are generally on arable land.

Took me a while to see any Snipe at that location. I was about to leave when a Curlew seemed to take exception to a Snipe; it’s circled it, got too close to where it was hiding which forced it to fly off. After that I waited and these three became more apparent with scanning of the shoreline.

I’m good at getting out of focus photos!; I had to delete quite a few where the camera had focused on the grasses and not on the birds. I’m slowly learning to use focus peaking more to improve my hit rate.

Only seen Egrets by or very near water whether on the ground or in trees, so far at least. It is interesting when they take flight. Similarly with the Grey Herons.

Today I was "the casualty" in a mountain rescue training session in the foothills of Cadair Idris. Whilst slumbering in my sheltered hollow, a fast moving bird caught my eye quite close overhead and landed on a tall boulder about 100' away. It was a female Peregrine, stout and muscular. I shuffled a bit, but she picked up my movement straight away and shot off over a nearby ridge. Beautiful.  No photo, sorry.

I'm still missing the Bar-tailed Godwit - which one is it? - hasn't got its bill out so difficult to tell.

Anytime I see Snipe on the ground (rather than flying rapidly away) is a bonus. Friday I went to a site I've been to many times where loads of other people see the Water Rails - I actually saw one, for about a second as it flew across the canal straight into the reeds after I inadvertently flushed it - at least it's blown the jinx, maybe I can get some decent views now.

If it wasn’t for a brief 30 sec preen I saw just before getting the photo, I wouldn’t have noticed or known the Godwit was there!

I’ve still to see a Water Rail. Hopefully you will get some good views now. Not for the first time once I’ve seen one of something I then have seen more.

I only saw my first confirmed Snipe Wednesday last week when I accidentally disturb one and it flew off at speed and disappeared again in long grass. Then yesterday I saw five and managed to get some photos!

Good stuff and glad you’re enjoying it all. And a good chance we have photographed the same egret - that looks like the island at Morton?  I took some cracking photos of little egret on Saturday, and good views of great egret. 
Snipe are cracking birds. Once you recognise their flight and call it’s interesting how many you see, eg flying over farmland. I’m lucky coz there’s good  numbers round here, at reserves and in the countryside. 

My recent highlights: Merlin fly by, avocets, white fronted goose, little and great white egrets, big numbers of black tailed godwits, a fantastic view of a Sparrowhawk flying past a hide ten feet away and bloke eye level, heard water rail and a feeble bittern boom, all at Leighton Moss, and a small group of lesser redpolls on my dog walk.

I've flushed quite a few snipe whilst walking on grassy hills in the lakes. You never see them beforehand though.

Also in the lakes last year flushed what I can only think must have been a woodcock, again no warning, just wtf was that, but knowing it wasn't a snipe or a partridge or pheasant.

But I got much better view of a woodcock (must have posted this before) in the middle of a field <50m from the road at Bolton Abbey - a real bonus spot that was.

Not Morton, but at Vane Farm - just next to the Gillman hide. Only other place I have seen them so far was from Eden Estuary hide. A few flew to a tree opposite with the rising tide.

Starting to try learn calls and songs for at least some of the more common birds this year as well as trying to watch flying characteristics. That will be a challenge.

BTW if you are heading up soon, apparently there is/was a Yellow-browed Warbler at Morton, a Black Redstart just west of Tentsmuir, and there has been a male Smew at Cameron for weeks. Rare for here I believe.

I did see the Smew - hard to miss with all the white even for me! To far into the reservoir to get a decent photo though.

Thanks for the heads up. I saw the smew, in the distance…. Stunning bird. 

Which one?

Been having a good look at the photo, winter wader ID is a great challenge. The wader to the right of the one you ‘arrowed’ looks more like a bar tailed than a grey plover. TBH, they are hard to tell apart in that photo, but the more speckled plumage IDs the grey plover.

That’s very interesting, thanks.

I did think from the moment I looked at the photo on the laptop that the two looked very similar in colour tone and sufficiently different from the others. As I had seen the up curved beak, neck size and length of the arrowed one I was sure it is a Bar-tailed.

However, the right one never moved from it’s slumber that I saw so nothing distinctive to go on for ID. After studying the photo for a while and with my lack of experience I convinced myself that the right one must really be a Grey Plover. Despite being a lighter colour, I thought I saw more scalloping effect of the feather edges, particularly the tertiary feathers (think that’s the ones that show prominently near tail on these birds?) rather than a plain white edge of the Godwit. Also, I thought the head, wing edges and general colour were too like some of the other greys in the photo and it was likely the poor light of the day just appeared to show the bird differently.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any other photos that show anything different to help. Happy to accept it to could well be a Godwit. Lots to learn. A useful learning exercise for me; thanks.

Those two were (for me) the most obvious Godwit suspects when I first looked at the photo - but there really is very little to go on in that photo - none of them are clearly outside the range of plumage variation within a single species, especially once winter plumage and juveniles come into it - I suspect very few people (certainly not me) would have noticed the intruder without having previously seen its bill.