You really couldn’t make this up. The UK has gone completely bonkers. “Natural England has given permission for the destruction of 4,500 Mallard eggs over three years to prevent ducks “walking out in front of cyclists” and causing accidents.”&nbs…
Author: Phil Slade
One Day Week.
That’s all we seem to get lately, one day in seven suitable for ringing, the rest too windy, wet, or more likely, both. Wednesday 13th had been pencilled in since last Saturday as it looked the most promising this week; so it proved with our meet …
Pick N’ Mix
There was a sad start to the journey this morning when the car headlights picked out something motionless in the centre of the road near Pilling village. It was a Red Fox that had been hit by a vehicle. When when I looked closer there was fresh and st…
3,000,000,000
Mention and discussion of the UK and Europe declining bird populations has been a feature of this blog since it began some 10 years ago. Now, a recent study (September 2019) in the journal Science reveals that since 1970, bird populations in the U…
British Birds: A Pocket Guide – Review
Back in 2016 I reviewed the WILDGuides Britain’s Birds: An Identification Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland, at the time a new and entirely photographic guide to the birds of the UK. It received lots of plaudits and congratulatory reviews, inc…
An Outstanding Event
This morning saw a heavy and highly visible migration of northern thrushes through our Oakenclough ringing site. Andy, Bryan and I met at 0645 with nets up and set ready for 0715. We caught very few birds in the less than ideal conditions of…
Chalk And Cheese
An extract from North Ronaldsay, Orkney Blog – 16th October 2019. “A fantastic day with birds everywhere, massive flocks of Thrushes moving across the island throughout the day; the huge rolling flocks of Redwings filling every field, coming in of…
More Thrush
The forecast for Tuesday morning was about as good as it gets just lately – a gentle breeze from the north with a fair amount of cloud that would slowly break. That was enough to motivate us to head for Oakenclough again where Andy and I met up at 0645…
Back Into Action
Saturday 12 0ctober. I gave my ringing pliers a squirt of WD40. What with the trip to Greece and then the bad weather, they’d been deprived of action since 8 September. This morning it was back to Oakenclough hoping to see and to catch some autu…
Skiathos Blue
If the weather was kind to us in Skiathos, it has been very unfriendly since we arrived home. Going from wall-to-wall sunshine and 30 degrees and then back to the usual British rain, wind and 12 degrees is quite a shock to the system. Until I can…