The Safari was hoping for an adventure to a new site for us out east but snowy weather forced us into a last minute change of plan and an old stalwart Martin Mere was chosen instead. We joined CR our driver for the day and we possibly could have made it out east but as this was a recce mission to find out what's what up there better weather would have been preferable so we chose the 'safe' option.  An hour later we were settled in the Discovery Hide scanning the multitude of waders and waterfowl spread out in front of us. There weren't many gulls on the mere, we'd just passed a massive fl ..read more

The Safari headed east with CR on a shorter safari to Brockholes for our first winter (= late autumn really) visit there since the old days before it was a reserve. Watch that nasty pothole on the way in if you're visiting, it's more like a cave, the car's suspension bump-stops came into play with a disconcerting bang! Once past that hazard and under the bridge onto the main drag into the reserve we saw lots of work had been done, or was still in the process of being done on the lake to our left. Our first stop would be the look-out area from the Visitor Village for a closer look. The pic does ..read more

The Safari was taken up to Leighton Moss by CR where we met IH joined by young LH who hopefully will become a more regular safari member although she currently lives in a different  part  of the country. First stop was a look from Lillian's Hide where there was a good selection of waterfowl and a few well secreted Snipe. However we didn't stop too long as we wanted to show LH one of the reserve's specialities, the Bearded Tits, so we walked down to the grit trays along the path to the Grisedale Hide withall our fingers crossed. The woody walk was quite, almost devoid of life and the ..read more

The Safari picked up CR and headed south east to join almost all the old Southside Gang at a grey, dull, dreary but mild(ish) Pennington Flash just over the border into Greater Manchester, our first safari here since mid-April.  Perhaps the most interesting thing to be seen from a quick peak from the first hide was a Red Dogwood bush in striking plumage, normally we would expect to see the stems this bright, especially as there was no sunshine - chance would have been a fine thing - today, as the sap was rising in the early spring. Maybe it was just the contrast with the, mostly, still gr ..read more

The Safari picked up CR but with IH and AB both out of commission this week we had no definite plan of a venue. South seemed a better option than north and with several Challenge potential species on offer west was chosen in favour of east.  Our first port of call was the small but perfectly formed Longton Brickcroft reserve, a site we really enjoyed working at back in the day when we were very very much younger. Over the last week or so there had been reports of a Scaup there but there had been no news for a few days. Our hunch was that most local birders had seen it so it was likely sti ..read more

The Safari was joined by LCV who kindly drove through the drizzly night to arrive peering at the North Sea for daybreak. As usual our bird list for the trip started well before sunrise. The first entry was rather unexpected, a pre-dawn Buzzard wafting across the beam of the headlamps. Next up was a more to be expected Carrion Crow and then we struck avian gold in the form of a Barn Owl before we got to Hull. The remainder of the journey didn't give us anything out of the ordinary, however a flock of Long Tailed Tits in a roadside hedge would be the only ones we would see on this safari. We pa ..read more

 The Safari picked up CR and pointed the car northwards to Leighton Moss. We had two prime targets on fairly easy and the other as tricky as! Once on the reserve we soon found a small flock of Goldcrests, one the CR would have liked to have  got a good pic of but they were,' for showing themselves at all. Our tricky quarry wasn't with them either - we were on the hunt for one (or more) of the huge nationwide influx of Yellow Browed Warblers. Our second quarry, the 'easy' one was easy - as ew approached the Grisedale grit trays we were beckoned to come quickly - - so we did! Wow, neve ..read more

The Safari was planning to go north but with IH out of commission new boy AB was invited to take his place but said due to motorway nightmares north was going to be an issue so CR pointed the car southwards to meet him at Martin Mere instead. It wasn't a bad day, a bit of sunshine and not too much wind. First up we headed to the Feeding Station where very little was happening, the feeders were full but devoid of life so we didn't hang around continuing on to the nerw set of hides. On the way the sunshine had brought out a nice mature, or should that be ageing, male Common Darter. At the fir ..read more

The Safari has only been able to get out n about a couple of times since getting back from our boaty ride. With t'mutt along with us most of our favourite reserves were out of bounds so to kick off we took CR to Lunt Meadows LWT reserve where we'd arranged to meet up with local lad IH. It was quite a pleasnat morning, some sunshine and, for a very refreshing change, little wind. We'd not long got our boots on and left the car when this lovely Red Admiral fluttered across the track in front of us and kindly stopped on a just above eye level Bramble leaf. Rather than go onto the reserve the usu ..read more

The Safari has met up with RL, our Extreme Photographer, in Poland, almost did so in Perth, Australia, and now he was waiting for us at the dock gates in Porto, Portugal - well Leixoes actually as the city of Porto isn't quite on the coast but a little way up the Douro river. Close enough for the 'P's we guess - where next, Papua? Paraguay? Palau would be good!  WE nearly didn't make it to the dock gate and almost certainly wouldn't have done had we had our scope with us as there were thousands of gulls of all shapes and sizes to scan through. Tempting as they were we didn't stop for more ..read more