Author Archive

20th January 2010, Wednesday

Garden seal released into the sea

Curious? click here for BBC report.

20th January 2010, Wednesday

Search for Ferruginous

The hybrid Pochard x Ferruginous Duck that has frequented the Long Pit for the last few winters was again in amongst the Pochard flock recently. To see previous pictures and discussion, copy and paste the word Ferruginous into the “search” box in top left corner of this page.

9th January 2010, Saturday

Smew

Despite the cold weather in mainland Europe there are very few Smew around in RX land - just 2 each at Dungeness and Castle Water. Yesterday this pair was catching small Perch just in front of the Castle Water hide (where a tangle of willow branches was submerged a few years ago to act as a fish refuge).

8th January 2010, Friday

Close Encounter

… with the Bittern. After three unsuccessful attempts to get a close view of this sometimes invisible bird, I had much better success this morning at the Castle Water hide.

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7th January 2010, Thursday

(N)ice birds

At dawn this morning there was surprisingly little ice in front of the Castle Water hide. Even so, there were some birds that seemed attracted to it…

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5th January 2010, Tuesday

Frosty Lapwing

With an "easy" Bittern in prospect I got to the Castle Water hide at dawn and despite there being no Bittern there was a lot to see. 300 Lapwing roosting on the ice, some showing frost on the feathers!

frost-on-Lapwing

Looking closer…

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4th January 2010, Monday

Icy Bittern

At the Castle Water hide today the ice had extended out beyond the reeds and Janet Richardson took this portrait of a Bittern trying to work out what has happened to the water.

bittern-2

1st January 2010, Friday

Rye Harbour Highs and Lows

Here is my personal choice of last year’s wildlife highs and lows.

Insects - highs

  1. Painted Lady - invasion by huge numbers
  2. Huebneria affinis - identification of this fly last seen in UK in 1921
  3. Red-veined Darter- confirmed breeding at Castle Water

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31st December 2009, Thursday

The sun sets on 2009

I set out this afternoon to photograph the rising "blue moon" over the wind farm, but failed because of cloud cover. My consolation was a colourful sunset over the Firehills at Fairlight.

sunsets-on-2009

25th December 2009, Friday

Christmas Quiz

If you are looking for a good wildlife Christmas quiz, then the RSPB have the best I could find… click here.