Today we headed south from the house to a large country mansion near Dunkeld which I booked almost two years ago for a week’s retreat with several of our friends, the excuse (if one were needed) being to celebrate my upcoming 60th birthday. On the way there we stopped for a walk at a woodland …
We were working around the house in Premnay today and having meetings with various people about roof and building work. Apart from seeing and hearing our resident tree sparrows, and hearing blackcap, grey partridge, yellowhammer and a few other song birds, my only other wildlife sighting of note was finding a dead mouse from where …
Having left our overnight stop we headed to the Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve near Bridlington. Part way there I realised that it was a bank holiday Monday: Mostly I don’t really take on board these sorts of holidays, but today it was hard to escape: Bempton was absolutely packed! We were directed to the second …
We are both heading up to Scotland for a week or so, staying initially at our house in Aberdeenshire and then sharing a large house near Dunkeld for a week with various friends. Before beginning our journey north I managed to get in 45 minutes at the pools east of Wells where I caught up …
Today we were both preparing to head up to Scotland tomorrow, and so neither of us got out for any wildlife excursions, and there were no new moths in the trap. I was wondering what to write for this blog entry and got to thinking about my bird list for 2023. As I’ve mentioned before …
Having been for a physiotherapy session in Aylsham in the morning (I have an ongoing shoulder injury that’s causing issues) I managed to stop for about 90 minutes at the raptor watchpoint at Swanton Novers as it was directly on my way home. The hope was for honey-buzzard, an elusive woodland raptor which I have …
This afternoon Brenda and I had a walk at Burnham Overy Staithe. It’s a walk that takes in tidal mudflats, flood meadows and sand dunes, and always has a wide variety of wildlife. We had lovely views of reed buntings near the path: Everything is resplendent at the moment in full summer plumage. I also …
Today we were somewhat pre-occupied with my mother-in-law, Emma’s, funeral: The service was well attended and hopefully a fitting tribute. Our children, Jenny and Chris, were with us and also our friends Jeremy and Cecilia from Cambridge. After the funeral we decided to go out for a walk with them all, followed by a meal …
Brenda writes: “After yesterday’s excitement today was very quiet, mostly spent around home, but there was one new moth, a scalloped hazel, which I have never seen before. We have hazel growing along our garden boundary so hopefully we will see more of these. New species for May 23rd:Moths: scalloped hazel TOTALS TO DATE:Birds = …
Today I noticed that a pair of great tits were using one of the nest boxes in the Benslow garden. The young have obviously hatched but not yet fledged as I could hear them calling from inside the box. I waited for a few minutes with my camera and got a small sequence of one …
