Moor Green Lakes

A visit to Moor Green Lakes in Finchamsted after work, trying out the Lumix FZ200. Nice!

Greater Spotted Woodpecker..ZOOM!!!

Ivinghoe and Inchcombe Hill

 

Linnets at Inchcombe 

View from the top of Inchcombe Hill, ending at Town Farm Camping

Its a Wryneck sort of week

A trip to Lavells Lake at Dinton Pastures produced my second wryneck of the week.
Quite chuffed - I spotted it on the other side of a hedge that the bulk of the birders were looking at!
As Obi One Roy told me - "think like the bird" -so I did - where is the sun and where is the wind, so where will the insects be.  And there it was...
It flew across to another hedge area, where I got some video footage.
Here's some pics taken from the video.

Wryneck, Lavells Lake

Wryneck Twitch video, Lavells Lake

A bunch of blokes looking for a small yellowish bird
Lavell Lake

And here is said bird - A Wryneck
Wryneck vid 

Wryneck cockney life tick - 244

Chanced a trip to Wanstead Flats in London, and after a few hours of nothing, this WRYNECK showed nicely.
Life tick # 244.
In attendance , LGRE, Joan and Anna (not Mrs F!) along with some locals. I travelled alone - lucky it was a Bank holiday otherwise I would have been hit for a congestion charge
Fit in nicely with AD shopping trip to Hemel ;)

Adult Wryneck basking in the sun

Wryneck

Wilstone circular - Butterfly Life Tick # 18

A circular walk around Wilstone.

Red Admiral along the dry canal

This RED ADMIRAL brings my life tally to #18 and year list to #16

Spotted fly, flying

Spotted Flycatcher in the Hide Meadow 

Kestrel

Hmm not sure

LMGP's Crested Grebe

Breeding grebes at Marlow Spade Oak

Juvenile Great Crested Grebe with adult

Ivinghoe

Early morning looking for common redstarts, no luck but got some nice shots

Chiff Chaff , not a redstart!

Blackcap

LMGP's quick visit

A quick morning visit reaped little - Snipe still present and about 30 / 40 Canada Geese flew in.
Many gulls and Greylags also present
An Egyptian Goose with 2 juvenile also

LMGP'S visit

A quick stop in before work... A single Snipe, Kingfisher , many Black Headed Gulls and Lapwings.

Double Dip local stylie

Anna & I had Monday off - and we went to Inchcombe Hill for a walk and to see if any of the Common Redstarts that have been reported were about, nothing visible but clearly a few calling.
We then went to Startops to see if any Black Terns were present, alas none.
Off to the cinema to watch Ted - quality inappropriate film!!!

Black Terns at Startops

An early morning visit to Startops produced some quite close ups of 2 Black Tern, watched with Sally Douglas

Also a low flying Sandmartin that sat on the path.....

Pennington Woodsand and Snipe

Great views of Wood Sandpiper and Snipe at Pennington 

Wood sandpiper and Common Redshank

3 Snipe with a Redshank

Pennington Curlew Sandpipers - 243

A trip to Pennington Marshes on a Friday night....

Spent ages looking for a Night Heron - only saw a Little Egret and lots of midges looking through a hole in the hedge..

A life tick of some CURLEW SANDPIPERS was a great result.

No luck on the heron mind you... Didn't get home till 11 pm - picked up AD from the kebab shop after a night out!!

Curlew Sandpipers with Godwits

Snipe @ LMGP

Popped in to Marlow on the way home and used my x2 teleconverter with Sigma x500 and not bad results ... On tripod with remote release
The little terns seemed to have gone ...

Snipe at Little Marlow

Startops this morning - Terns

Word was out some black terns were at Startops....
Saw a distant juvenile - possible shot below
Other shots of tern...

Common Tern feeding

Juvenile Common Tern

Long distant juvenile black tern .....

Little Tern at LMGP's, Year tick 224, Life Pic

Today brought approx 15 LITTLE TERN to Little Marlow Gravel Pits . A life picture no less. Taken with the new D90. Also year tick 224

Also 2 snipe , 1 Greenshank, 1 Common Sandpiper and 2 Kingfisher.

Little Tern at Marlow Gravel Pit

College Lake Year tick - Little Stint

A quick trip out with Denz before Ikea(!) reaped a nice view of a juvenile LITTLE STINT at College Lake this morning.  The count now at 223 for the year
Also a nice view of a Common Sandpiper, pictured below as well as the stint

Little Stint at College Lake Octagon Hide

Slimbridge Lifers

As the LONG BILLED DOWITCHER has been at Slimbridge for a couple of weeks I thought an early trip could reap rewards, and it did! Also a GREEN SANDPIPER takes the life total to 242, and the year list to 222.
Dowitcher:

Green Sand:

Sacred Dip!

I saw a report come in that a Sacred Ibis had been seen at Clifford Hill GPs in Northants. As I was working from home I thought I would dash off before the evening began.
An hour or so later I arrive - to be told there was a Landrover weekend and what was I doing here trying to get into the site that is private... Great I think....anyway they let me in and I spend about twenty minutes trying to work out where the lakes are!
When I get in there are loads of 4x4 tracks everywhere with red tape ready for the weekend events - tents everywhere!
Not surprisingly no sign of said bird as I reckon people were making a right old noise getting things ready.
Well - a new site anyway!
I entertained a few lads walking around with fully loaded twitching gear on.
I hope it doesn't get reported again there as I walked around the lakes TWICE to check if it was there!!
Dipped!

Gateway at Ivinghoe

A common butterfly in these parts, but new to me!
A GATEWAY butterfly, number 17.
Taken around Ivinghoe Beacon area

Butterflies

As the summer months slow down bird activity, I've started photographing butterflies.

Here's the collection so far [16]
DARK GREEN FRITILLARY
DUKE OF BURGUNDY
GRIZZLED SKIPPER
HOLLY BLUE
LARGE WHITE
MARBLED WHITE
MEADOW BROWN
ORANGE TIP
PEACOCK
RINGLET
SMALL COPPER
SMALL HEATH
SMALL SKIPPER
SMALL TORTOISESHELL
SMALL WHITE
SPECKLED WOOD