My Photo Gallery at Rare Bird Alert

I've just been asked to upload some of my Great Grey Shrike photos to Rare Bird Alert for publication in their weekly birding roundup newsletter.  This is the photo they used, not the best of my shots but quirky:

Here's a link to the newsletter:

http://www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/v2/Content/WeeklyRoundup2016-46.aspx?s_id=362613204

I had to create a new account to do this and you can view my gallery here:

My Photo Gallery at Rare Bird Alert

Male Long-tailed Duck at Pennington Flash

The Leigh Ornithological Society's logo has a male Long-tailed Duck in flight on it, and so it's nice to actually see one in our recording area for once. This one has been showing well at Pennington Flash for a few days now, and even though it's not in breeding plumage with a long tail, it's still rather special.

I am reliably informed that the reason that the Long-tailed Duck was chosen as the Society's emblem was because it would reproduce quite well on photocopied newsletters when, back in the day, everything was still done in black and white.

Well, judging by these colours, this bird will still look good on those old faded sepia-toned newsletters form the 1970's!

Great Grey Shrike in Glazebury, Warrington

Just a quick post to put some photos up of the Great Grey Shrike which has been seen locally over the last few days.  A more detailed report about the day will follow soon.

Conwy RSPB in the November Sunshine

I've not been for a proper walk round the Conwy RSPB reserve for quite a while and so today I decided to do just that. The weather had been promising to be very good for a few days now and this was going to be the best day of the week. After a cold start clearing my frosty car windows, I set off into the bright sunshine.

I arrived a couple of hours before high tide, but the Conwy Estuary which borders one side of the reserve already looked full, and there were very few birds visible on it apart from a few Wigeon and the odd Redshank.

"Great", I thought, this means the reserve will be full of birds!

Curlew in Flight

Great White Egret in Flight

Little Egret in Flight

Oystercatcher in Flight

Grey Heron in Flight

Drake Red-breasted Merganser

Robin pretending to be a Reed Warbler