California

157 Birds, 66 new.
29 Mammals, 16 new.
Blog update to follow! Soon!

Farne Isles

I went to Yorkshire and the Farne Isles with my family and I got a chance to take some photographs of the Puffins, Artic Terns and other birds and animals on the islands.
Here’s  the favourite photo I took:


And here's a good photo my dad took:


Full slideshow here.

Work Experience

Over the past two weeks I’ve been doing work experience at MKA Ecology and Birdlife International.

I was at MKA Ecology for 8 days and birdlife international for 2 days.

MKA ecology is an environmental consultancy that specializes in doing environmental surveys for their clients. At MKA ecology I joined and helped do some of their surveys which were probably the best part of the job. These surveys were carried out for various species including a bird and a badger survey, as well as plenty of bat surveys. I wrote reports and helped with invoices. I also did some territory mapping for the different species of birds that were seen on the bird survey. This part was also interesting as you could see the territories come together as you put the various different surveys of the same place together. These territory maps could be useful for showing what species were there permanently and what species were passing through. I found the different aspects of it interesting and I enjoyed my time there.

At Birdlife international I worked on an internet project. I looked up on cables and transmission lines in Egypt and information such as who constructed them where they go, who funded them etc. It was hard to find the information, but it could be useful to saving large birds including storks, vultures and eagles that use these areas as a flight path. Unfortunately these high wind areas are also perfect for wind farms (and therefore transmission lines.) The birds crash into the turbines or the lines and they die. This is one of the key projects for birdlife international and for more information go to Birdlife’s webpage: http://www.birdlife.org/flyways/index.html. I also talked to lots of people within birdlife international about their jobs that they do and why they worked there. I really enjoyed working there for the two days I was there, I found the work interesting and it was great meeting everyone that worked there.

Red Kite

Red Kite over St. Albans cathedral.

Parrot Crossbill

East Sussex – sketch.

Goldcrest

I painted this picture of a Goldcrest for my Dads Birthday.

Sabine's Gull and two Grey Phalaropes

Sabine's Gull and two Grey Phalaropes at Grafham Water.

Tanzania

331 birds. 293 new.
37 mammals. 35 new.
We visited: Arusha; Manyara; Gibbs Farm; Ngorogoro Crater; Serengeti; Tarangire.

We saw many of the famous African mammals from Cheetahs, Lions, and Leopards to Elephants, Wildebeests and Zebras. Birds we saw included 3 different Turacos, Hartlaub's, Purple-crested, and Schalow's, as well as Red-and-Yellow Barbet, Secretary bird, African Broadbill, and several different species of Vulture.

A complete list is here.

Myself and my Dad took lots of pictures in Tanzania. Here are the better
ones.

Titchwell

Norfolk (Cley)

Today, I went to Cley and saw the general birds that  you can see there regularly; Avocets, Marsh Harriers, Greenshank, Sedge Warblers and the like, although a special bird of note was a Shorelark (a long way of and un-photographable.) But anyway, I took this opportunity to take some decent photos of the more common birds around Cley. The birds were perhaps easier to see and photograph as many of them had young with them, which is shown in some of these images…

 

   

 

 

 

Photographer of the month!

Baltic Gull

We went to north Cambridgeshire to look for Water Pipits but found none. Later we went to Lackford lakes to see the Baltic Gull (fuscus Lesser Black-backed) that was spending the rest of the cold weather there and we saw it sitting behind a mud bank. i drew this picture of it.

Great Grey Shrike

Today I went to the telescopes at Barton to see the Great Grey Shrike that had decided to stay there. After a previous failed attempt at seeing it, I saw it pretty much straight away, and decided to watch it until it flew off. I took a few pictures, not particularly good but OK for "proof" snaps.

Long-tailed Tit

There has been a Long-tailed Tit banging its head on pretty much all the windows of my house lately. This is probably because of its reflection in the window as they become quite territorial around this time of year. I took this opportunity to take a few pictures of it attempting to kill its reflection. Click the picture below to see the slide-show...

My dad also took some video on his phone.

Pink-footed Geese

today I went to Snettisham with my family. There were a lot of Knots and Oystercatchers there.  At about 4:00 the Pink- footed Geese flew in in big waves. There was about 10,000 of them flying to roost.

I took these pictures of them…

Cornwall

We went to Cornwall for three nights at Mousehole near Land’s End. Because of the northerly winds, we didn’t see much other than a Buff-breasted Sandpiper. My dad did find some Firecrests, Yellow-browed Warblers, and a Lapland Bunting as well. We also saw some Peregrines which were close to the cliffs in Porthgwara.

I drew the Buff Breasted Sandpiper then painted it with watercolours.

Fowlmere Poster

My artwork is on the new Fowlmere poster…

Suffolk

 

Today I went with my dad went to Suffolk. We first went to Priestly Wood to see Dormice. We saw 28 by the time we left.

 

We also saw this cool looking fungi. I took the left-hand picture.

We then saw a Pallas’s Warbler (below in water colour) at Minsmere. Whilst there we also saw the King Eider. Both were new birds for me.

Canada

In the summer holidays we went to the west of Canada.

We stayed on the coast around Vancouver and on Vancouver Island in the first half of the trip. In Vancouver the areas we visited were: Stanley Park (where we saw Raccoons), Reifel (where we saw Sandhill Cranes), Capilano suspension bridge, Grouse Mountain, and areas around the city. My favourite bits were Capilano suspension bridge and Grouse Mountain (where we saw Douglass Squirells.) The food was great and Halibut is now officially my favourite fish.

Then we went to Vancouver Island on a ferry we saw a few things on the way over, and visited the botanic gardens on the other side. We took a second short ferry from Brentwood Bay to Mill Bay where we saw the first and best view of a Steller’s Sea Lion before we headed north and birded around a marsh seeing some more good birds. The next day we drove to Tofino and stayed at “Bird and breakfast” where we saw Rufus Hummingbird that we had missed at the botanic gardens. The next day on the “Early Bird” trip we saw our first Black Bear, it was the first of eight! The next day, we went on a pelagic to the shelf, 50km out to sea! The day after that we went on a canoe tour and to Cleland Island were we saw Sea Otters! The next day we got a float plane over to nights inlet where the two highlights were Grizzly Bears and Orcas and we saw both! One of the Grizzly’s had two cubs both of which, (though one more than the other), had white chest markings.

Then in an RV we headed off to the Rockies we stopped off at various places on the way getting lots of new mammals and birds at the various campsites including Clark’s Nutcrackers as well as Yellow-pine Chipmunks, American Red Squirrel, and a Columbian Ground-squirrel all of which could be seen very closely and fed on peanuts. In the Rockies it was good fun staying at jasper and Banff national parks and many birds were seen as well as mammals including Hoary Marmots and a Grey Wolf!

The Badlands were good fun with lots of birds including Western Kingbirds, Western Meadowlark and Canvasback. We went on early morning drives to see mammals but all we had was road kill. However, we saw a Great Horned Owl that made up for it. We later went on to the Dinosaur Provincial Park where the scenery was unique and amazing! There I saw stuff including Mountain Cottontail and American White Pelican.

The holiday was good fun and overall I saw 170 species of  birds (plus two heard), with 132 of them new (as well as 10 quite different new subspecies.) I also saw 31 mammals (plus one heard – Coyote) including my 100th mammal: Beaver.

A complete list can be found here (I’ve crossed out the birds I missed.)

Here are some sketches I made…

      

Here are some photos (mostly that my dad took, although I took some of the Grizzlys)…

 

 

 

Nothing!

As I got up at 7am yesterday (on a Saturday!) and didn't get back until midnight, I did nothing today!!!