Saturday 29 May 2010

An Abridged Week

Hooray, back on line at last.  Came home Thursday and no Internet, suspected modem was Kaput and sure enough when the guy arrived at 1600 today he just put another one in and off it went.  My problem with the uploading of pictures seems to have been fixed also (touch wood).  Anyway heres a couple of pics from my various trips out this week.  First of all from Breamish Valley a couple of hares:
It then ran straight into the stream then seemed to swim across and out out the other side:
Bit on the wet side side (didn't know they liked water)
Other birds of note I/We  (went back on Thursday) saw were Whinchat, Spotted Flycatcher, Common Sandpiper, 3 Buzzards and an unbelievable amount of Willow Warblers. 
We also heard a Cuckoo several times but never found it, also tried on Thursday (only heard it twice) but still couldn't find it.   There was also plenty of Swallow and Swift action although I still haven't got a decent pic of of a Swift in action.

A trip to Cresswell produced another first for me, a Little Gull.
At Shibdon John and I were given a guided tour of the Butterfly areas by George, what a nice chap (think I have said that before).  As usual there were plenty of  "odd" looking birds there.  This chap just tagged along with a Canada and its 7 young but I havent got a clue:
Whilst at Shibdon came across this flower but none of us knew what it was, any ideas from you keen pansy guys out there (Davy) ?  LOL  BTW no flowers were hurt in the taking of this photo.
Also had an early morning trip to West Hartford (no stint unfortunately) but thanks to Birding Sometimes I got to see my first Garden Warbler of the year, also got some decent pics but unfortunately my left thumb went into overdrive and god knows how but I deleted them.  My favourite shot of the week is entitled
"Cmon Lad Your Not A Member, Out"

Kittiwake to Control Tower "Can someone talk me down, Ive had a Bird Dirt Strike"

2 comments:

Phil said...

Flower is a garden-escape columbine hybrid aka Aquilegia. Great shots of the swimming hare - haven't seen one on dry land yet this year!

HowdonBlogger said...

Bloody Hell Phil. That was a quick reply only posted it 4 mins ago. Thanks for the info.

John