Packing for my next wildlife tour

I had a lovely morning doing a Bristol dinosaur workshop at a private school today - normally I'm in Bristol City Council schools so it was very interesting working with year 3s from this school. Incredibly bright and I was able to ask more challenging questions than I normally would. It was a cold morning, minus 2 degrees Celsius and on my way back to work I checked on the berry bushes in Henleaze for any waxwings - sadly none were there!

While topping up my bird feeder this morning some redwings were calling in the nearby trees - hopefully they nipped down to peck on the apples I'd just put out (before the jackdaws flew away with them!!!). Sadly the sunshine which graced Bristol over the weekend was not to be today. Yesterday I had a glorious afternoon at Bristol Zoo with Andy - all the animals seemed bright and energised (or may be that was just me!).

This evening I've been packing ready for some tour leading with Naturetrek on the Somerset Levels and then nipped off to the Bristol Ornithological Club's committee meeting. I'm looking forward to the nature tour beginning tomorrow evening in Wells - especially as the great white egrets and starlings have been showing so well. I'd better not speak too soon!!

The Big Garden Birdwatch

Yesterday I did the Big Garden Birdwatch with a friend Liz - we spent an hour 2.15pm to 3.15pm looking out of my flat window while chatting, enjoying tea and cookies!!! As expected, some birds I've seen recently such as coal tits and dunnocks didn't make an appearance. However, over the hour we finally concluded that at least 9 chaffinches were feeding on the lawn (they were a bit jittery and kept flying back into the trees!) while at least 2 great tits and 2 blue tits fed on the feeder. A few jackdaws came down to pinch some old sandwich I had put out and although there were no starlings in the garden a few small flocks did fly by! 2 male and 2 female blackbirds fed on the apples and half an hour after the Big Garden Birdwatch 2 mistle thrushes sat in a sycamore tree!

If you haven't done it yet, there's still time today - just spend an hour watching your garden or local park and record the maximum number of each type of bird you see. Then submit the sightings to www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch.

And yes, the following day the dunnocks did reappear, singing with full vigour!

Full totals:

Blackbird 4
Blue tit 2
Chaffinch 9
Great tit 2
Magpie 2
Robin 1
Woodpigeon 2
Jackdaw 4
Carrion crow 2

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.  

Ringing ducks in Devon!

An awesome day ringing ducks with the Axe Estuary Ringing Group today! At 7.30am we gathered for a briefing before waiting for the ducks to begin feeding on the grain. Bang! The cannons fired and that was our queue to run to the nets to bag the ducks. Shelducks, wigeon, shoveler, teal, mallard.....it was looking like a good catch! Everyone worked together as a team and by late morning we'd ringed and processed just under 60 ducks including 8 shovelers and 3 wigeon. It was a great opportunity to be part of the team and really get to grips with the shelducks as well as the other species. The shelducks were also being colour ringed with bright yellow ID leg rings.

Waxwings!

A real treat today - as I was writing an e-mail I spotted a starling-sized bird with a crest in the sycamore tree. I instantly knew it was a waxwing. It swooped down out of view and I later realised there's a shrub full of rose-hips where it must have been feeding! What an awesome garden tick! Combined with a male brambling yesterday and all five species of winter thrush this week I'm not doing too badly!

While at the recycling place at Avonmouth there were hundreds of black-headed gulls, herring gulls and the odd lesser black-backed gull flocking around the waste warehouses! No doubt cashing in on good grub being delivered throughout the day. Along the road pied wagtails and dunnocks were feeding in the slush - no doubt goodies coming off the rubbish trucks' tyres!

On my way home I spotted some starling-like birds and could see they were waxwings too - just a few, but waxwings nonetheless! And once at home some black-headed gulls and herring gulls were flying low over the neighbourhood on their way to roost.

Everywhere you look there really is something to see - I'm going to miss it all while I'm a away for a few days for Christmas! Have a trusty neighbour to feed the garden birds for me though!

Waxwings, common gulls and winter wonderland

After a morning resting fighting off a cold I set off for work - it still hadn't risen above minus 4.5 degrees Celsius.

The garden had been busy this morning - I threw out the leftovers of a chicken carcass and attracted a dozen black-headed gulls, a few herring gulls and....a rarity in Bristol, a common gull. Despite being common in urban areas in the south-east they stick to the hills in the west.

I went to work via Avonmouth hoping to spot some waxwings that had been seen yesterday. I wasn't disappointed - 7 were resting and feeding on some snow covered berries and I got some lovely views. A few fieldfares were having their share too. The odd lapwing flew overhead.

The trees everywhere were covered in harsh frost and even snow around Avonmouth. The Downs in Bristol looked stunning.

To help get us all in the Christmas spirit we had a carol service in the Great Hall of the Wills Memorial Building at lunch time - wonderful. And then battling in a freezing cold office I left a little early to continue getting over my cold and reminisce on the waxwings!

The Big Freeze

Wow! Seems a long time since I last made a post. It's been a busy three months with the Bristol Dinosaur Project, leading bird identification courses and various appearances on tv and local radio!
Despite the big freeze across the UK we seemed to have come off pretty lightly in Bristol receiving only a light dusting. It's still incredibly cold outside though, not rising much above freezing. I've been putting some apples out in the garden which have been welcomed by the blackbirds. I spotted a male blackcap today too, a visitor from Germany while a mistle thrush was cocking its tail and getting a good view of the neighbourhood on top of the sycamore tree outside my flat. Yesterday I spotted 30 lapwings flying south across Henbury, no doubt escaping the snow further north. Be interesting to see how the next few days pan out - it should be getting a little warmer.