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24 Feb 2018

Little Penguins

Whilst in Melbourne we took the opportunity to visit St Kilda. Ostensibly for a nice lunch and a walk along the seafront. Taking the tram from Melbourne city centre we arrived just as it started raining so we had an early lunch before walking out along the sea defences that were originally built for the sailing events of the 1956 Olympics.

Little Penguins have colonised the boulders of the sea defences and there is now a thriving population. You can now go at dusk and wait for the adults to come ashore rather than making the long journey to the big colony at Phillip Island. If you;re lucky you can see the youngsters among the boulders - we were lucky! We saw quite a few bums or heads sticking out but one youngster was in full view from the board walk.



Almost fully fledged it was losing its down and beginning to show the blue feathers that gave it it's alternative name of Little Blue Penguin.

20 Feb 2018

Dragons!

I've been visiting my daughter and family in Australia for a couple of weeks and reacquainting myself with the local bird life. We also spent a few days in Sydney coinciding with the Chinese new year celebrations and visited the calm oasis that is the Chinese Friendship Gardens near Darling Harbour.

The gardens are fabulous and full of wildlife including these amazing looking Water Dragons. They're native to Australia and have found the perfect home here.








18 Feb 2018

More patch birding

Theres nothing better than standing in the study as the dawn breaks with a mug of tea in hand and watching the pond opposite the house through the scope as the light reveals whats dropped in over night! Unfortunately thats all to rare an occurrence as I usually leave for work this time of year in darkness and get home in darkness but one day this week I had the chance to stand and watch......

The result was another species for the patch year list - a pair of Shoveller had arrived overnight but left soon after dawn. The 4 Wigeon remain though and the Canada geese have started arriving occasionally joined by a couple of Greylags.



Shoveller and Teal above. Greylags below:

Canadas below:

We are also getting regular visits from at least two Rabbits who seem to have taken a liking to the extremely rotten windfalls left out for the birds!



5 Feb 2018

Hawfinches at Wimpole Manor, Cambridgeshire

The weekend saw the 48th Bird Observatories Council meeting being held at the BTO's headquarters in the Nunnery, Thetford. Four of the Hilbre Bird Obs committee made the journey to deepest, darkest Norfolk and a good time was had by all! It was great to catch up with representatives of most of the other UK bird observatories and be present when Alderney Bird Observatory got their accreditation. It was also a good opportunity to meet up with old contacts at the BTO and put faces to names of those people we'd dealt with either by phone or email.

With Steve and Chris commencing their birding and gastronomic, sorry birding,  tour of north Norfolk on the Thursday it was left for Al & me to travel down on the Friday. With my car needing two new tyres after failing its MOT it was down toAl to drive and he picked me up around 09.30.

An uneventful journey had us pondering where to stop off for a bit of birding and checking the map we found that a group of Hawfinches had been seen regularly in the car park of the National Trusts property at Wimpole Hall. A quick detour and we soon found ourselves watching 5 Hawfinches as they performed brilliantly a few metres away feeding on  seeds from some kind of tree with winged fruits. It didn't look like Ash and it doesn't look like Lime.

 Apart from having the privilege of ringing one of these huge finches on Fair Isle a couple of years ago and being relatively close to a well known site in N Wales these were the best views I've had of a group of Hawfinches.





A great couple of days at the conference and good views of Muntjac Deer from the Nunnery windows, Kingfishers in Thetford town centre and Red Kites along the A14!

Many thanks to Al for the use of his photos.