Birding Braunie

There was blood everywhere. One of the hazards of making your own photo adaptor out of a toilet roll tube is the need to cut it to the right length for your lens so that it just touched the eyepiece of your telescope. This idiot thought it would be best to cut the dotted line he had drawn in mid air so as to not squash the tube. Alas, although this worked for the most of it, the final slice took the very sharp scalpel away from the tube and right across the now yelping idiot’s thumb. Unlike my thumb, the adaptor was now the perfect length and once again, average photos were now possible. Two Tree Island at 6am Two Tree Island is a fantastic place in the spring, especially at 6am. Normally, I would expect to be alone at such an ungodly hour but due to the arrival and prolonged residency of a night heron, the car park was already filling up. I had previously tried for the heron but every time I arrived, it was roosting in reeds out of sight and could stay hidden for hours. So, as I...

The day had started well enough. Clear skies and a warming breeze were the order of the day as I drove down to Oare Marshes en route to Dungeness. Oare Marshes Oare Marshes sit snugly on Kent’s eastern side, set against a backdrop of the Swale estuary and close to ye olde town of Faversham. The marshes are made of of two distinct areas. The east flood is viewable from the road and can provide close views of a number of wildfowl and wader species. Between this and the estuary is a pathway that takes you around the pools that are fringed by reedbeds. The reeds were alive with sedge warblers and bearded tits. Both these species were establishing their territories and were actively flying back and forth, low over the reeds. Their activity precluded me from getting any photos so I kept my homemade adaptor in my pocket – or so I thought. From the west flood, an area that is more secluded and usually quieter there were wheatear and a few lapwing. From here I took the coastal road to ...

Should have known it. Going to Landguard in Suffolk for a MEGA was destined to be a disaster. I had only been saying (and joking) at work how staring a a bush for an hour or two – when the bird you want to see, isn’t even in it – was all part of the 'fun'. Well I’ve changed my mind. Spending Saturday morning looking for a short-toed treecreeper, a little bird, no bigger than a mouse that blends in with tree bark and is elusive at the best of times is no fun. Needless to say, after a couple of hours, my eyes, mind and feet began to wander. I know, I thought, I’ll go and watch some birds that I can actually see and keep an ear out for any orgasmic shouts that come from die-hard birders if it was located. Landguard is another one of those weird places that rare birds love. It is a finger of land that juts out beside Felixstowe at the mouth of the River Orwell. Back as far as 1540, the area has been utilised as a military defense against sea invasion. Landguard Fort was built...