Bittern at Rainton Meadows

(Bittern - Rainton Meadows DWT - Andrew Kinghorn)

Taken between 03:15 - 03:45 in fading light.

Bird Sounds of Winter

Thought I would do something a little different for this post. But first I will update you on what’s been going on with my birding the past week or so. Yesterday I decided I would pop down for the Bittern at Rainton Meadows DWT and after about 4 and a bit hours in the coldest hide in the North East I saw it, it showed extremely well and was well worth the wait. What a bird! Superb bird to get locally, on my patch. Believe it or not I was once a very keen local birder, never really going further than a 5 mile radius of where I live. Always good to get the bread and butter stuff and get to grip with the commoner stuff first, rather than diving in the deep end. Though I have missed some superb birds because of that attitude! lol

Anyway, here is a small quiz to see how hot you are on your ID skill of some of out winter visitors. They are all birds; however some of the calls might not necessarily be made by the birds at THIS time of year. I decided to do it this way so I could include more species.

Please comment with your answers. Don’t be afraid incase you get some wrong, just have some fun trying to work out what call is what bird. Anyone’s comments that seem to be ridiculing others will be deleted form the post. I am sure that won’t be a problem though. So here goes!!!!!!!!

(The name of the species is placed on the sound file, so just press play, listen and then see if you can guess what the species is, don’t look because that is just cheating)

Mystery Bird 1


Mystery Bird 2


Mystery Bird 3


Mystery Bird 4


Mystery Bird 5


Mystery Bird 6


Mystery Bird 7


Mystery Bird 8


Mystery Bird 9


Mystery Bird 10


Enjoy!

Until next time, Foghorn out!

BirdForum - Northumberland Scuacco

FIRST: Click on image to enlarge

Now imagine that the above picture is on your screen. You are viewing the Rare Bird Information section on BirdForum, you are reading the Squacco Heron thread. Imagine............

After reading this section, go down and click on "Play", watch the demo, then enjoy! (hint: when the game loads after you have pressed play click on any part of the computer, do this as many times as you like for most humorous effect):

(Best with sound on)

Free Online Flash Games

Scroll down to also see my latest updates on my birding.

This post was only a bit of fun.

Until next time, Foghorn out!

Whaticks?

I better come clean and admit that I was up Northumberland last Saturday and dirtily ticked the Ross’s Goose in Wooler. Good contender for a wild bird I think, with Pinky’s and very wary and flighty. I also saw the Squacco Heron (R.I.P) again and the Waxwings at Ashington which were a year tick. Then on Sunday I had 19 Waxwings in Great Lumley which was a more than welcome addition to my village list, superb little birds. Defiantly one of my favourite birds in the UK.

But now we come to the title of my blog post “Whaticks?”, I had moaned and twisted about having never seen Bewick's Swans in the UK before. On Wednesday night after I had got back from dipping the Desert Wheatear in Northumberland I was greeted with news from Steve Egglestone that 7 Bewick's Swans were on Boldon Flatts. Sadly it was to dark and all I had to do was to hope they were still going to be there in the morning. Thankfully they were still there at first light the next morning and I enjoyed some simply fantastic scope views of these fantastic birds. Then eventually at 08:35 then took off and I got some superb flight views as the birds flew round in a circle above the Flatts and then flew off gaining height heading south perhaps never to be seen in Durham again. Thanks to Mark Newsome and Steve Egglestone for allowing me to use their photos. I see a new banner coming soon.

(Bewick's Swans - © Mark Newsome)

(Bewick's Swans - © Steve Egglestone)

(Bewick's Swans - © Steve Egglestone)

(Bewick's Swans - © Steve Egglestone)

Click on any of the images to enlarge them

Until next time, Foghorn out!