33 Red Kites

Lockdown birding has yielded quite a few raptors from the office and bedroom windows! Since the end of March I've had 2 Ospreys (I missed a 3rd) over the house, as well as a few Red Kites. A few became many on Sunday 10th, with 32 seen overhead between 14:40 and 15:20, and another one late afternoon. There would have been more but my view is obscured on all 4 sides so I can only see a small area of sky. Here's a pic of one of the birds which went over in April:

American Herring Gull

What a bird!

A message from Ian Mc at 14:38 saying "Probable American Herring Gull Tram sheds found by Steve" had me scrambling to put some camera gear together and find my scope! The stories on Gavin's and Steve's blogs are well worth a read as they're far more exciting than my relatively simple (local) twitch. Congratulations to Steve for the find and thanks to Gavin for helping me get on the bird when I arrived on scene with Dad. It showed well in the end and was quite 'obviously different', but it's always a relief to have someone point you in the right direction for such a bird. If you read Gavin's blog you'll learn that this same bird was seen at West Bexington in January, and funnily enough it was then also found by an Axe birder, Ian Mc! He must be rather chuffed that he managed to see it here as well.

Long spells

For regular visitors to this page this is stating the (very) obvious, but I fell off the blogging wagon in 2019 and if I'm honest, I'm not sure if I'll be putting out much content this year either, but I will try. I fell foul of Google+ personal accounts ending and lost the majority of my reader base as most followed me via there rather than through Blogger itself. Whilst I don't care about numbers, it's a shame that anything I write will be less viewed/appreciated/examined.

Aside from the lack of writing, pretty hideous luck over the last 18 months has meant that I've had long spells without convenient transport, long spells without camera gear and long spells with rather debilitating health issues. Not meaning to sound negative, but my camera failures have been rather interesting over the years. The probability of my specific camera failures is approx. 1 in 45 million. Given that all my gear was incredibly well looked after and with fairly light use, the probability is even lower. So chances are nobody in the entire UK (currently) has been as unlucky as me with camera failures. A pleasant thought...

On a more positive note, a smart Sparrowhawk sat on the fence outside my office window yesterday! Fortunately it stayed put long enough for me to grab a camera and take a few pics. I was using a spare camera of course, as my main one (almost new, barely used) was sent for repair last year and I still haven't got it back...