Just a few 2025 calendars left!
I have a handful of both the bird calendars and the astro calendars left, currently with free delivery in UK.
CALENDARS | TimWhite Photography
Just a few 2025 calendars left!
I have a handful of both the bird calendars and the astro calendars left, currently with free delivery in UK.
CALENDARS | TimWhite Photography
I finally got around to doing it. I'd been saying for YEARS that I needed a website for my photography exploits, and here it is:
https://www.timwhitephotography.co.uk/
Or for the calendar store, please go here Tim White Photography - Calendars
I've currently got an introductory promotion running on the calendars, with free UK standard shipping. A lot more sold on the first day than expected so I will likely only run this offer until the end of the week.
The site only has a few sections currently, but it's there, and it's working. More soon!
I genuinely believe I'll be dead next time there's a geomagnetic storm of this strength. It was utterly, utterly ridiculous. I'd been excited about Friday/Saturday since all the flare activity on Wednesday, with some nicely directed CMEs, well before any of the space weather agencies put out any of their predictions and the media got hold of it. I'd been talking this up on my socials well in advance, which is always a risk as nothing is guaranteed in this game; a lot of factors need to align. Thankfully everything went to plan and I didn't have masses of angry people asking why they didn't see it haha.
2 x 1 hr naps between 3 all-nighters Thursday - Sunday (I work weekends as well). Sleep deprived does not cover it. Was it worth it? You tell me. Thousands of photos to go through, but here's one of them. Aurora was EVERYWHERE. North, corona overhead, SAR arc, even South. Bonkers.
Oh yeah, had Nightjars churring and a Cuckoo calling whilst I was there.
A look at the forecast on Sunday and another look on Monday had me thinking Tuesday would be a strong candidate as the day the Kites pass us. I suggested to my Dad that we should try and keep Tues free and perhaps Weds/Thurs too, and oh boy was it the right call. Tuesday was THE day. The day of 228 Red Kites seen from Colyton, with almost certainly dozens and dozens more missed.
50-60 of them were overhead but most were gaining extreme height in thermals north of Colyton then heading W / WSW. Observing was rather challenging with hours spent looking through optics as they were mostly too distant to see naked eye. When they rode thermals up into and above clouds, that didn't help either.
A bonus Osprey over Colyton was nice too. Today (Weds) saw another 3 Kites and 2 Hobby from Colyton, and then another Osprey north over the A3052 in the afternoon. I've been seeing Goshawk, as well as the usual Buzzards, Kestrels, Sparrowhawks and Peregrines recently too. I've been quietly hoping for something better like a Honey Buzzard or Black Kite... Gotta have some optimism for birding whilst my astro is at a total stand still (far East Devon has been by FAR the cloudiest part of the entire UK at night-time over the last 20 months, and it's not even remotely close. I have astro buddies all over the UK so I get a pretty good idea). Us astro-folk are good at whining about our weather, in case you hadn't noticed (some justified a lot more than others mind).
Whilst we're on the subject of astro (sort of), the Sun has been extremely active recently, with dozens and dozens of flares. I'm expecting there to be northern lights visible this weekend, there's a very good chance depending when the CMEs (coronal mass ejections) hit. Of course I'm forecast cloudier than most of the UK... but try I shall. I'm predicting activity in the early hours of Saturday morning, and perhaps activity Saturday night into Sunday.
Here's the Sun, taken today. The cloud actually helped for this, I didn't blind myself or melt my camera, so that's a plus.
Some rather enjoyable Sunday gulling!
Not something I necessarily foresaw myself writing when I first got into birds over 20 years ago, but this year I've easily spent more time scouring gulls than any other group of birds. With the dodgy weather I thought I'd chance a visit to Tower Hide between deliveries, and aimed for low tide. However, with all the floodwater the river was pretty full, hardly any mud, and essentially no gulls; they were on nearby fields instead. As the tide was coming in, the water level gradually dropped (floodwater clearing made a much bigger difference than the incoming tide!) and gulls did start to trickle in.
A gorgeous 1st winter Caspian Gull was amongst the first 30 big gulls to drop in. Quite large, between Herring Gull and GBBG in size, and also ringed. This hung around for a while but was reluctant to flap, which became frustrating as more gulls were coming in which I wanted to check, but I also didn't want to miss getting the Casp in flight. Sure enough there was indeed another interesting gull as soon as the Casp had departed, then the cycle continued where I wanted to check more gulls but not take my eye off of this new bird!
Ringed as a chick in Netherlands on 19th May 2023, ta to Steve for chasing up the ring info |
The 2nd bird then. The dark mantle and general heft instantly caught my attention, heavy bill too. My general feeling was 3rd winter Yellow-legged Gull, but I've not previously seen YLG ages other than adult (only 2), 1st winter (a few) and juv (somewhere between 20-30), so it would be a new age for me. About 45 mins in watching this bird Steve rang to say he was on an interesting gull, and it turned out to be exactly what I'd already been looking at. He mentioned that the leg colour was odd for 3w YLG (this bird was clearly pink) and we both noted the interesting head streaking, which at times looked quite restricted and other times more extensive. It took some waiting but it performed superbly right in front of Tower Hide so there's a heap of pics to come. I'll just add a couple here for the time being, I'm in the middle of work really (yes, at 01:30 am). The bird to me looks (I mean visually not genetically) sorta halfway between YLG and Azorean, and Steve suggests that it may be a YLG from the Atlantic coast, but not Azorean, but not currently sure. I've sent it to another couple of gullers and there's also a shout for argentatus Herring Gull. More digging needed, and certainly an interesting bird. I've got pics of just about every aspect of it. Eye-ball included.
Monday: HUGE display of Northern Lights visible UK-wide
Tuesday: 2 Glossy Ibis briefly visit BHM
Thursday: Caspian Gull on the estuary
Friday: Barred Warbler (found by Tim Clark).
I couldn't get to Colyford Common until 17:30 ish, and got frustrating views of its rear end disappearing into the bushes not long after I arrived. 18:05 and I got a superb view of it, quite fortunate though as my position a bit further away from the hedge was the only spot where it was possible to see amongst the branches, and if my bins weren't already pointing at that exact spot, I'd likely have missed it. I quickly said to the others to stand in front of me so they could see it but as is often the case with warblers, it was only in that spot for 5 secs or so, and it then melted away into the bush not to be seen again before I left at 19:00.
Not a bad week. Couple days left too, in which I hope to escape work for a couple of hours...