Chatting together

Needed Stonechat for my SFYL so with an hour to spare Sunday afternoon thought I would try Warden Hill as nearest bit of likely habitat, Seen more Stonechats on this hill over the years than Whinchats, Luck was in as within minutes caught up with a pair of birds; one of each.

Ahhh the joys of autofocus...

Oh Boy it's winter already

Two Goldeneyes new in at Stewartby this morning. 

WTF goose

WTF Goose is that you may ask looking at these photos.
I did not have a camera with me, only an HTC Wildfire phone and it was quite breezy at 27x mag
But obvious white blaze and orange legs is enough for a classic BedsSFYL Blog record shot and matches the quality achieved from a similar distance on the GND recently.
A second decent grey goose this winter and slightly less debatable perhaps for the purists than the last

Dabbling in dabblers

Decided to have a poke around the brick pits to see whether any of the mass of Garganey from the Washes had found their way into Beds with our first arriving winter ducks. Did not get a garg but a dabbler was Beds self year ticked none the less when I found this Pintail lurking in Quest Pit, looked most like a young bird.
Maintaining the quality of record shots on this blog... here it is,

Chasing scarce before the Spring rush

Despite the season, not much to be added for me these last couple of weeks. A thorough search of Maulden Woods did not get an LSW but a hopeful stakeout of the pool in the pines did bring me a SFYL Crossbill coming down to drink as well as a few Redpoll and Siskin in late March. A weak tick in form of a pair of LRP at Broom was claimed after an otherwise empty early morning there.

I was expecting to drop back a little with no Bedsbirding over the four day Easter holiday as I was required to work on Friday before a dash up to parents in Coventry for the whole of Saturday and Sunday family stuff so I squeezed in an early Pegsdon on Fri 6^th and was delighted to pick up a male Ring Ouzel to start off the season at that location. All I’ve got to do now is refind the G. W. Egret next time it comes into Beds.

Did find a free flying small white Cockatoo sp on my parents TV aerial and then later in the next road. It seems that the SFYL activity is yielding more than its usual share of exotics.

Cockatoo - just departing stage right

To maintain the standard of images, here is a record shot from Pegsdon in the fog, no prizes for getting the species right