Radio Bristol and the Big Garden Birdwatch

The past few days I've been busy helping to promote the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch on BBC Radio Bristol! Listen out for me also on the weekend - I'll be Doctor in House with Faye Dicker on Saturday 10-11am talking about what we can do for nature this spring while on the very early morning show I'll be chatting with Nancy Jackson about counting birds!

Today I'm in a school in Cheddar, Somerset. Very cold but at a great school! In between giving dinosaur workshops I'm watching the redwings just outside the classroom feeding on plenty of worms on the grass!
A few siskins flew overhead earlier.  

Well, with temperatures down to minus 7 degrees Celsius it was another chilly night. I waited to hear whether the museum was open. It was but my line manager advised me to stay put and I had various things to keep me busy. It was an incredibly bright, sunny day and everywhere looked pure white!! Temperatures remains below freezing so little melted.

I also got up rather early to speak on BBC Radio Bristol and encourage people to feed their birds - hopefully lots of people are putting out fruit and other titbits.

Had a fieldfare in the garden which was a first and plenty of redwing flying around. A female blackbird was discreetly feeding on an apple I put out - I'm so pleased she found it as hopefully she laid down enough fat to see her through the night. It's going to be pretty cold tonight too but should be able to get into work - I have a school booked in doing a classification and taxonomy workshop!

Heavy snow hits Bristol!

After weather forecasts predicting heavy snow over southern England, it was no surprise that we had a complete white out overnight! Checking when I woke at 3am there was certainly a lot of snow out there, and even more when I woke at 6am! Checking with my manager, I ventured into work on foot as car was impossible and buses were cancelled. I had a 2 hour walk into work but through Blaise Woods it was beautiful! Even once I was walking through neighbourhoods and down Whiteladies Road it still felt very special - everywhere looked transformed! I got into work at 10am and spent a few hours there before the museum was closed at 12.30pm and we were asked to leave at 1pm. Managed to get the bus to the top of Blackboy Hill and then walked home - again some great scenery and lots of people having fun! Lots of bird movement too - redwings, fieldfares and skylarks overhead, no doubt moving to areas clear of snow! Once I got home I rallied together with neighbours to clear the road hill as cars weren't able to get up and a car park was forming at the bottom! An amazing day - snow always makes it a very different day and an exciting adventure!

City Museum, Bristol

Well, what a year it's been!! Almost near the end of 2009 - had some amazing days birding recently and just been relaxing in Bristol getting some good online bargains with outdoor clothing!!

Highlights in the past few days have been red-breasted goose with brents at Topsham, alongside spotted redshank and scaup. While at Cheddar, three black-necked grebes and a goosander where definitely worth driving through the heavy rain! A trip to Slimbridge was also amazing with large numbers of Bewick's Swans, pintail (including one that I ringed) and an awesome display of 70,000 starlings coming in to roost! While I was ringing the pintail, a huge black cloud of them gushed past!!

Female teal preening at Slimbridge

Had a brilliant day yesterday filming for my new show reel. At minus 4 degrees Celsius in Bristol, four of us set off for Bath to do a piece about peregrines. Arriving there in minus 6 degrees Celsius it was a cold start to say the least but a lovely place to be first thing. The peregrines had eaten a woodcock the evening before - a fresh head of one lay on the ground below. The male peregrine arrived around 9am with a pigeon which it was tucking into. We left a sunny Bath for Chew Valley Lake - the smaller pool was frozen, with the mallards and coots skating around when people came to feed them!! I interviewed Robin Prytherch, a renowned ornithologist about the lake before setting off to Chew Valley Ringing Station nearby to film some ringing. We had a lucky morning and got to see two great spotted woodpeckers and a male bullfinch in the hand!
Ready for lunch we set off back to Bristol, grabbed some food and then went looking for berries on the Downs as part of a challenge sequence - I quickly found ivy, rose hip and white beam. The sun had gone behind the clouds and it was feeling pretty wintry, esp as some snow began to fall (didn't come to anything sadly!!). Our last sequence was down at Severn Beach - a Countryfile style piece talking about the pros and cons of the Severn Barrage. No kidding, it was a chilling experience as the wind cut through us all but we had all the pieces in the bag by 3.30pm and finished off for a celebratory drink in the nearby Boar's Head in Aust!

Last night's talk went well - I love being able to see all the New Zealand wildlife I saw all over again!!

Had an early start this morning for a phone interview on BBC Radio Bristol about not feeding birds turkey fat!! Apparently it can kill them which I hadn't even realised until I saw the press release from the RSPB - the juices that often get mixed in can go rancid and cause bacterial death! Nice!

I then ventured out into the sub-zero temperatures and went into the BBC Radio Bristol studio to do the newspaper review, focusing on BA's strike (now called off until the new year), Copenhagen (and Hilary Clinton's halo), the death of two soldiers in Afghanistan and the display of a famous painting that was stolen in 2003 and refound in an office earlier this year!

Time for a quieter morning at work!!