Our Bird Watching Year.

 

As you all know the other love of my life is bird watching.  I have been bringing our years lists up to date this afternoon and printing it off as I do every year.  We have seen a total of 183 species not a bad year at all in fact one of your best that is if we are not out of the country.  So tomorrow we start all over again.  The real hot shot birders that fly up to the Shetlands and out to the Scilly islands at the drop of a hat can do a lot better than that but that is out of our league until we have a big win on the lottery.  I have posted a couple of pictures for you to see I must stress they are not of my taking but downloaded for a bird watching sight we use daily. The first bird is a Belted Kingfisher who dropped in on 1st April and nobody would believe the chap that saw him. He did stay in Yorkshire for a couple of days then disappeared then he reappeared just south of Aberdeen two days later that is when Stuart and I bombed up to see him he was a cracking bird. We got the most horrible weather to see him it was lashing rain and a cold wind but he was worth it I say he there is no difference between the sexes of this bird.  This was a "Life bird for us and the first time this bird has been seen in Great Britain.   The second picture is a Trumpeter Finch that we we were lucky enough to see when we were on holiday in Suffolk this summer it came to Felixstowe and we were only about 50 miles away so we could not resist this opportunity as this is a rare bird for this country and again it was a life bird for us. And with that I will wish Stuart and myself happy birding in 2006 and a bigger total. Hope you have found this of some interest as I know many of you feed and water the birds in your garden this is the other side when you get carried away. Love 

                  Joan.