British Birding Association

GULLFEST – the Arctic birding highlight of 2012 In collaboration with Martin Garner of Birding Frontiers we have put together a new birding event: the Arctic GullFest! Everyone who ever thought of visiting Varanger – this is a very good opportunity to do so! There is a lot happening in the arctic north. There is [...]

British Birding Association

British Birding Association

Anticipating the usual flood of Kumlien’s-like gulls in the west and Thayer’s-like gulls in the east, I’ve put together a proposed thayeri-kumlieni-glaucoides scoring system at http://www.tertial.us/gulls/tkg.htm It’s a first draft cut to develop some consensus about how we talk about and evaluate these things. Feedback is welcome. (I’ve already got ideas to improve it, but [...]

British Birding Association

British Birding Association

Just heard this, thought it may be of interest to the list. An injured male American Wood Duck has been seen near the RNLI Lifeboat Station, Pollawaddy, Arranmore Island, Co. Donegal since last Friday. Injured wing. Not really approachable, but can’t fly, it spends a lot of time out of sight in a rushy area [...]

British Birding Association

British Birding Association

A total of 193 species was recorded on my Round Britain tour of last week with a mouth-watering list of species recorded, a whopping 14 species higher than on my trip in January 2011. Amongst the many highlights were Long-eared Owl, Lapland Bunting, Golden Pheasant, Grey Partridge, Scandinavian Arctic Redpoll, Spotted Redshank, Long-tailed Duck, Ross’s [...]

British Birding Association

British Birding Association

On Monday 28 November, Mark Golley discovered a small calidrid at Cley NWT Reserve in North Norfolk. It was consorting with a large group of  Dunlin and was showing, reasonably well, on mud visible from Bishop Hide, overlooking Pat’s Pool. With its dark ear coverts and numerous retained dark-centred and somewhat anchor-shaped scapular feathers, it [...]

British Birding Association

British Birding Association

The autumn of 2011 has been one of the best year’s ever for vagrant HUME’S LEAF WARBLERS Phylloscopus humei, in Britain with over 18 individuals recorded so far (see Appendix 2 for details). It is a species that breeds from the Altai Mountains to western Mongolia, south through Tien Shan and the Pamirs to NE [...]

British Birding Association

British Birding Association

I still have one vacancy on my Round Britain tour of 14-22 January 2012 as well as places on my February trip to Spain for Iberian Lynx, Wallcreepers, Great & Little Bustards and much much more… March will see me in Israel and April in Georgia, Morocco and Cape Verde Islands (spaces available on all [...]

British Birding Association

British Birding Association

Today [Tuesday 13 December, 2011], Matthew Gonshaw (49) of Cherrywood Close, Bow in East London, has extended his infamy for being Britain’s most imprisoned egg collector by being sentenced to yet another jail term, for six months, following conviction for stealing and possessing wild birds eggs, including those of some of the rarest and most [...]

British Birding Association

British Birding Association

British Birding Association

British Birding Association

Peter Adriaens has very kindly provided me with a further selection of White Wagtail images photographed in Belgium and France. That showing the rump variation is particularly instructive -: Download Update- The Separation of White and Pied Wagtails

British Birding Association