It is a dangerous thing when a connection to nature is broken. Without a garden or a decent local patch and a long slow uninspiring Spring over the last few months, while waiting to move into our new house, I've let myself go a bit as a result of less exercise and activity. One portion of saveloy and chips for lunch followed by a doner kebab in the evening was all it took to get to the tipping point and I ended up with a stomach infection and in hospital for three days.    Ending up in hospital is like going to hell before you actually get to hell, like a taster, especially in some N ..read more

Nice to see our short note in Dutch Birding this month about the Steppe Gull flock we discovered in Azerbaijan last year; the first fully documented record of this species for the country and a little piece in the puzzle of this species migration distribution. Also a stunning piece this month about a Swallow-tailed Kite on the Azores by friends - quite frankly much more exciting than gulls! Dutch Birding remains the premier birding journal for the Western Palearctic packed full of other excellent articles too.   We've got another exploration trip to Az planned, leaving within the nex ..read more

A break in the wet and windy conditions resulted in a flurry of migrant birds along Cuttlebrook and a few more moths in the light trap.  Ebird list HERE. Highlights included Yellow Wagtail, Willow Warblers and Blackcaps, all new arrivals to the local patch. Garden moth year list now on 51 species.  Blossom Underwing- a bit of a worn one Red Twin-spot Carpet- the first of the year and quite early too Great Prominent- a couple of these recently  Unidentified gelechid?  Greylags over Cuttlebrook  Found a patch by the brook with lots of animal tracks including ..read more

Just back from a cracking few days in Devon visiting Jaffa and one of Jacob's friends. We stayed in a really cool log cabin at Clifford Park Bridge and did some moth trapping every night there (three nights) which yielded a few moth lifers. On Thursday we visited Pennywell Farm with the kids and on Friday met up with Jaffa and explored the Lower Otter Restoration Project (LORP) and twitched the local Beavers in the evening.  Meanwhile over at Beddington, Mark Bravery found the first Woodchat Shrike for the site, which was a bit gripping!  Male Goosander on the River behind the cabin ..read more

Had a good moth night over the weekend at the rental with 21 species (the best night of the year). Highlight was a Northern Drab- a moth lifer for me (my 981st moth species) which was identified by Martin Townend (Oxon CMR) after I posted an uncertain Orthosia sp to irecord. The same night I had Pinion-spotted Pug and Chamomile Shark with other supporting cast of Pine Beauty and Streamer so a really nice little catch.  Garden moth year list now on 45 species.  Northern Drab.  Comment from Martin: The big thorax, gun-barrel straight costa on very angulated FW make it o ..read more

The flood waters are high again on the Cuttlebrook corridor and a couple of sessions there over the last week with Jacob have been very quiet- just singing Chiffchaffs. However we can't get very far along the brook due to the high flood waters so can't check the best spots.  We spent the last couple of days down at Selsey getting quotes for the reburb before we move in next month. We had a quick visit to Arundel WWT.  Highlights included my first summer migrants for the year, a couple of Sedge Warbler and a Sand Martin, also Green Sandpiper and a calling Tawny Owl. Ebird checklist&nb ..read more

As I have neither a decent garden or a decent local patch at the moment (our move date is set for late May) I've resorted to living in the past and updating my world lists and been revising what I've seen and where.  I'm mainly using Ebird and i-Naturalist and been transferring data from spreadsheets into the central hub of iGoTerra which seems to be the best global pan species listing platform. Natural history is infinitely complex and we all reluctantly have to draw some lines around small parts of it in order to focus so I've more or less limited myself to just recording Birds, Mammals ..read more

  Around this time last year I bought the Canon R7 and finally this week I managed to let go of the money to complete the combo with the RF 100-500mm f4.5-7.1L IS USM. This seems to be the new Canon mirrorless standard set up for birders/naturalists. Weighs in at just over 2kg, which for a 500mm quality lens is brilliant.  The main appeal for me is the quality zoom which enables an instant shift from photographing butterflies/moths and reptiles in macro to zooming out for birds. Of course the zoom also means it's suitable for photographing large mammals and cetaceans too. This is a ..read more

Here's a few sounds from Estonia using my recently purchased Zoom H5. More sounds on the trip report HERE ..read more

Spent the last couple of days on Saaremaa island exploring the icy Baltic bays, harbours and coastline. The highlight of the trip were the famous Steller's Eiders that winter here but the supporting cast of thousands of seaducks and waterfowl were equally impressive with thousands of Long-tailed Ducks (the largest winter concentration on the planet), hundreds of Goosanders and Goldeneyes, Red-breasted Mergs and tens of Smews, Eiders, Common and Velvet Scoters and we also picked up the odd Slavonian Grebe, Black-throated Diver and Razorbill. On the way to our next destination we twitched a firs ..read more