Another hugely successful SCOTTISH WEEKENDER TOUR

Over the Bank Holiday Weekend, I visited SCOTLAND on one of my annual WEEKENDER TOURS, successfully connecting with ALL of the TARGET BIRDS, including over 30 BLACK GROUSE, 5 CAPERCAILLIE, 6 PTARMIGAN, male SNOW BUNTING, 7 DOTTEREL, GOLDEN EAGLE, numerous CRESTED TITS, SLAVONIAN GREBES, BLACK-THROATED DIVERS, RING OUZELS, MERLIN, 8 WHITE-BILLED DIVERS, Puffin, GREEN-WINGED TEAL, KING EIDER, SURF SCOTER and much much more......

If you would like to book on the next trip, please email me at LGREUK400@aol.com

A selection of highlight photographs are produced below

The ISRAEL TOUR of March 2013

Although migration was slow this year, and weather in the North was cold and inclement, the LGRE tour recorded a high of 226 species - an above average total. I scored two new Israeli birds - Egyptian Goose and Black-winged Kite - whilst overall highlights included the huge White Pelican, White Stork, Black Stork, Common Crane and Black Kite passage, Eastern Imperial Eagle, 4 Greater Spotted Eagles, Bonelli's Eagle, 8 Pallid Harriers, Long-legged Buzzards, 10 Black Francolins, Sand Partridges, lots of Common Quail, 3 Little Crakes, 8 displaying MacQueen's Bustards, 9 Cream-coloured Coursers, Collared Pratincole, a cracking male Caspian Plover, up to 3 White-tailed Plovers, 2 Red-necked Phalaropes, 22 Great Black-headed Gulls, 15 White-eyed Gulls, a White-cheeked Tern, 42 Spotted Sandgrouse, pair of Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse, 70 Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, Egyptian Nightjars, Little Swifts, 14 Blue-cheeked Bee-Eaters, 5 Bimaculated Larks, Long-billed Pipits, 8 Citrine Wagtails, Eastern Bushchat, 3 Black Bushchats, Caspian Stonechat, pair of Arabian Warblers, male Menetries' Warbler, many Ruppell's Warblers, Asiatic Scrub Warbler, Clamorous Reed Warblers, Great Reed Warbler, Tristram's Grackles, Dead Sea Sparrows, numerous Pale Rock Sparrows, Syrian Serins, 50 Hawfinch and a good passage of Ortolan and Cretzschmar's Buntings

I am now taking bookings for next year's trip - 24th March to 4th April - email me to reserve a space - LGREUK400@aol.com

Here is a selection of images from my lastest trip

Outstanding shots of Balranald's star performer HARLEQUIN DUCK

An exceptional selection of shots taken by North Uist's top birder Steve Duffield; he found this cracking drake HARLEQUIN DUCK at Traigh Iar just over a month ago and it is still present today

Nine Minutes 24 footage of a BITTERN stalking prey

 

 

Phil Parsons kindly emailed me the following video footage of a EURASIAN BITTERN he filmed feeding at Slimbridge WWT in Gloucestershire on Saturday 23 March. It is an excellent piece of footage and features on my new British Birding Association forum just launched. The video can be found here

 

http://youtu.be/nDhkhGL5Tg4

STEJNEGER'S STONECHAT added to UK400 Club List and Western Palearctic List

This first-winter STEJNEGER'S STONECHAT was trapped and ringed at Portland Bird Observatory (Dorset) in late October of last year (2012) and found to be the same individual that had spent nearly three weeks on Texel (The Netherlands) only the day before its overnight arrival. Martin Cade took feather samples in the hand and DNA analysis confirmed it as belonging to the form stejnegeri, now considered independent of maura in a taxonomic review of the Stonechat complex. Further details of the trapping and inhand measurements can be found on the invaluable and superb Portland website at http://www.portlandbirdobs.org.uk/latest_oct2012.htm

What a cracking bird this is

What a beautiful bird this adult RED-BREASTED GOOSE is. It is back once more in the East Fields at Farlington Marsh (Hampshire), consorting with up to 2,500 Dark-bellied Brent Geese. It spent most of February in neighbouring West Sussex on Thorney Island.