Brilliant Bittern in Flight

Whilst waiting for the Collared Pratincole to show at RSPB Ham Wall a Bittern flew by rather gracefully. Although only visible for a few seconds, this was by far my best ever views of Bittern. Lovely!

More shots of the best PRAT I've even seen

Here's a few more pics of the Collared Pratincole which was present at Ham Wall for a third day. Also had nice views of Bittern and Great White Egret but I'll save those pics for a later post. (All of the below images are very heavily cropped from the originals due to the distance of the bird):

COLLARED PRATINCOLE at RSPB Ham Wall

I didn't see the news about the Prat until around 23:00 on Sunday so I very quickly had to shuffle my work schedule! Some of the regular readers may remember what happened last time I went on a twitch for a Collared Prat... it was one of many rare birds that I waited a while to go and see (just to be sure that there was a good chance of connecting) and of course I missed it on it's first day of absence. My twitching luck in 2013 and 2014 was amazingly bad in that respect with a similar thing happening a few times!

We arrived at Ham Wall just after 08:30 and the viewing platform was surprisingly quiet with only 2 other birders there, neither of whom had seen the bird yet. About 10 mins later I spotted it fly up in the same place that it was frequenting the previous evening. Result! We spent almost 12 hours waiting for good views but the bird always remained distant - just a small speck in the viewfinder. I took work with me so I could wait and work at the same time! Thankfully it was such a good bird that it didn't really matter if the pics were a bit crap (these are cropped in VERY far, hence the poor image quality):

Dancing in the rain

Open wide!

Kingfisher Video Clip

Best watched in full screen at 1080p resolution.

Autumn Passage at BHM

I'm still very busy with work (mostly working away from home lately) but did manage a very overdue trip to Black Hole Marsh this evening. With 4 Little Ringed Plover earlier in the week, and a Greenshank & 5 Common Sands this evening it seems as though the birds are finally starting to come back through. The tide was still rising so there would also have been more birds out on the estuary. Here's a pic of the Greenshank which stayed distant but was nice to watch none-the-less.

Kingfisher Posing Beautifully

Another busy week of work for me but I hear that the patch is getting some Autumn migrants (see Steve's Axe Birding blog). Here's a couple of pics of a Kingfisher to keep this blog going; there'll be a few seconds of video to post soon as well.

Hawk Moth P0RN

A few snaps of a pair of Privet Hawk Moths taken at my parents' place in Colyton. I was on my way back from business travels when the message came through so I headed there instead of home to bed (work to sleep time ratio about 10:1 last week)!

Stunning creatures!