Harry's Birding Blog: November 2013

Monday, 25 November 2013

Lesser Grey Shrike, Northumberland

On Sunday 24th I went up to Northumberland with bandanna man for the Lesser Grey Shrike at long nanny. It had been annoying me for over a week now so it was nice to get fantastic views of it feeding in the horse paddock next to the car park. This was also my 35th British tick of the year.

First 4 photos were taken with Canon 7D with a standard zoom lens and the last 4 were phone-scoped with iPhone 4S

(Lesser Grey Shrike - Harry Murphy)

Monday, 18 November 2013

Weekend in Norfolk...

Great weekend, started of at Flamborough with a fine male Serin a bird I did not expect to see anytime soon knowing how 'untwitchable' they are. After that we maid the trip down to Norfolk and missed the Parrot Crossbills at Holt so we went to Stubs Mill and had 25 Common Cranes and over 25 Marsh Harrier coming into the roost. The next day we got the Rose-coloured Starling at Caister first thing and then went back to Holt and got the Parrot Crossbills straight away. We saw 6 crossbills and could definitely say we had 3 Parrots.

(Rose-coloured Starling - Harry Murphy)

(Parrot Crossbill - Harry Murphy)

After being unsuccessful with Dartford Warblers we went for the Black Brant at Salthouse which gave reasonable views with hundreds of other dark bellied Brent's.

(Black Brant - Harry Murphy)

The last successful stop was Titchwell were we got Cettis Warblers, Bearded Tits and Water Pipit.

(Golden Plovers - Harry Murphy)

Sunday, 10 November 2013

Pied Wheatear, Nottighamshire

Sunday 10th November
Had good views of the Pied Wheatear at Collingham in Nottinghamshire, showed very well at times and it was good to get it back after not seeing the Holy Island bird the year before, I think this individual is also the first ever inland Pied Wheatear in Britain? Terrible photos below...

(Pied Wheatear - Harry Murphy)

Saturday, 9 November 2013

West Side...

Saturday 9th November was spent on the west side of the country, We got to Sizergh castle for 10:00 and we had a Hawfinch soon as we entered the car park. After several flight views we then went to Leighton Moss in Lancashire and had fine views of 5 Bearded Tits on the grit trays including a cracking male.