Tawny Owl

Tawny Owl, Southill, 28th December 2009. Another shot can be found here.

Whooper

Whooper Swan, Broom GP, 28th December 2009

Cetti's Warbler - MVCP

A couple of shots of one of the Cetti's Warbers at the MVCP. Photographs by Martin Green.

Xmas Garden Birding

A selection of birds seen in my parents garden near Stewartby Lake over the last 3-4 days. Photos by Martin Green.

'Sooper' Roxy

A real treat on my local patch - I was pretty lucky to see it though as it flew about a minute after these photos were taken. I've only just noticed the Grey Wagtail in the top photo...

Half way to America...

From a bit of SCB, surfing the net - this appears to be an American Wigeon x Pintail

Lesser Redpolls & Slavonian Grebe

A few photos of a flock of 50+ Lesser Redpolls that were in the MVCP "sewage works plantation", they were also seen later on by Bob Hook near the visitors centre. This is by far the biggest flock I have ever seen on the Country Park, with probably about double the number that was in the next biggest flock I have seen here. If they hang around I'm hoping they might be joined by one (or both...) of their rarer cousins...

Star-bird of the day was a Slavonian Grebe found by Martin Palmer. It was found about 3.30pm and I saw it shortly afterwards with Dave Ball. The grebe was about 3/4 of the way across Stewartby Lake from the gullwatch and managed to vanish after we had been watching it for about 2-3 minutes, but it may well still be about... I tried to take some record shots of it as I had never photographed one on the lake before, but unfortunately I could not find the bird in the photos when I was by the lake. So imagine my surprise when I discovered this masterpiece of imagery when I got back home... Which just goes to show that there are some things that even PhotoShop can't fix... :-(

Photos by Martin Green.

Treecreeper - MVCP

This Treecreeper was picked up on call by Neill Wright near the MVCP Pillinge hide. (Well done Neil!) They are pretty rare on the Country Park - recorded just about annually. Photo by Martin Green. (Neil got a much better photo which may appear on the blog soon...)