A great holiday with my kids in Switzerland. Two nights in Geneva, three nights in Zermatt and a night in Lausanne. Great walks, good weather and nice food. Great place to go.
Geneva
Zermatt
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Bonaparte’s Gull
Spent the morning in Kent, first at Cliffe Pools RSPB reserve and then Oare Marshes near Faversham. There was a very distant Marsh Sandpiper at Cliffe as well as 6 Black-winged Stilts. An adult Bonaparte’s Gull was at Oare Marshes, where there were also a couple of Spotted Redshank and Turtle Doves. Here are a few pictures of the Bonaparte’s Gull, the first one shows it with a Black-headed Gull. The Bonaparte’s is the one with the black head and the Black-headed Gull has a brown head.
Bonaparte’s Gull
College Lake
Went for a walk around College Lake. There was a male Common Scoter on the main lake and a Garden Warbler was showing well in the carpark.
Common Scoter
Garden Warbler
Duxford Airshow
Lots of planes, don’t know what they all were but there were some Spitfires and the Red Arrows were really spectacular.
Badger
A badger arrived in the garden whilst it was still quite light last night so I took a few photos.
Blondie & Phil Collins
My brother had tickets for Phil Collins at The British Summer Time event in Hyde Park. Having had a few beers beforehand we got there in time to see Mike & The Mechanics, Blondie and Phil Collins. I last saw Blondie play in 1978 at the Queensway Hall Dunstable. Hard to believe to that Debbie Harry is now 72 years old. Phil Collins had some sort of injury so was seated throughout his performance.
Bee-eaters
When I heard that Bee-eaters had been seen at East Leake quarry in Notts and presumed to be breeding there, I knew I would be visiting the site as soon as possible as they are one of my favourite birds and a very colourful species. They attracted a large audience after the RSPB set up a watchpoint with parking nearby. My pictures do not really do them justice, but they were quite distant. They were mostly using one Ash tree as a base from where they would often fly out and capture bees and dragonflies. The most I saw were 5 at any one time.
A very tame juvenile Robin
**MEGA** Elegant Tern
On Friday evening there was news that an Elegant Tern had been seen at Sandy Point, Hayling Island. I headed for Sandy Point early the next day and waited for about 4 hours with no luck, news was then received that it had been relocated in Pagham Harbour from Church Norton. A quick drive whilst hoping there would be a space in the small carpark, in fact I got the last space. After a wait of about 20 minute’s the Elegant Tern was seen in flight over the tern island in the middle of the harbour. It was seen a few times in flight before it flew across the harbour and out to sea. No pictures of the tern but a few of the crowd and Pagham Harbour.
New Forest
A good day out in the New Forest. The main target species was Honey Buzzard and one was seen, if rather distantly. Goshawks and a family party of Hawfinch were seen a bit closer.
Goshawk
Hawfinch
Lakenheath RSPB
A few photos from a visit to Lakenheath RSPB a couple of weeks ago.
Cuckoo
Hobby
Bittern
Brunsblog 