50 minutes into Manchester by the Sea like "this film is A BIT sad but no idea why everyone says it's really depressing", blissfully unaware of the gut punch I am about the receive.
Your count will go into the records, never fear.
Thank you! π
4 LRPs on Pilning Wetland and 8 common RPs at the back pond
OK well this is the last time I'm doing this as none of my numbers even made it into the Avon blog π
What a waste of time
Next time I won't bother reporting
New passage descending tide: 60+ turnstones with a few knot
Aust Warth: 3 stonechat, 1 kestrel
@bristolbirding.bsky.social
Pilning: chiffchaff singing, 3 cormorants, 50+ teal, 30+ shoveller, 4 lrp β
, 10+snipe, 11 redshank, 1 Cetti's singing, 1 reed bunting singingβ
, 2 gadwallβ
, 20 curlew, 2 blackwits, 8 ringed ploversβ
, 15+ lapwings, 1 stock dove, 2 tufties,
@bristolbirding.bsky.social
New pssge/Northwick high tide: 2 Linnet β
, 25 wigeon, 70+oysterctchr, 40+shelduck, 45+curlew, 40+redshank, 2 teal, hundreds of knot β
& dunlin β
, 2 greenfinch, 1 Cetti's singing β
, 1 green woody heard, dozens Skylark β
& mipit (never water pipits!) & pied wag, 1 kestrel
@bristolbirding.bsky.social
Long trip to severnside still yielded no egrets for 2026! I decided to try to count any of the non-boring birds but inevitably lost the will to live halfway through. Here's my list:
Severn beach: 1 GCG, 10 wigeon, 16 shelduck, 1 singing greenfinch, 2 pied wag
@bristolbirding.bsky.social
Here is the mad list of birds I've yet to see this year with all my family responsibilities:
Bew/whoop swan
Barny/pf/brent goose
Gdwall
Pintail
Scaup
Avocet
Ring/gold/gry plover
Dunlin
Green/spotshank
Knot
Any egrets (!)
Any harriers
Peregrine
Kfisher
Skylark
Chiffchaff
Linnet
Any buntings
Buzzard from my kitchen window a first for the house list and had me running for my bins! @bristolbirding.bsky.social
I can't really express the power a blackbird's song has over me. Those first few times you hear them as winter draws to an end. Those balmy summer evenings listening to one singing in a beer garden... A magical quality to it
Might have an afternoon off to go birdwatching tomorrow, but honestly is there anything good around locally in Avon at the moment?
Glossy Ibis, today at Catcott Nature Reserve
It seemed too big. I'm not sure I'd have confused it with a small goose at first. Could have been a female goosander maybe?
My thought process throughout the sighting
"ha that's a funny place to see a goose"
"a bit small for a goose"
"flying very clumsily/slowly for a duck"
"is it a cormorant?"
"wait its head is lower than its neck"
"does it have a big fat cormorant tail?"
"no just see trailing feet"
"wtf"
People are going to call me mental for this, and there's a chance I am, but I swear I just saw a diver flying low over the crossroad at the top of Wellington Hill!
I think maybe it's you that needs to do some self reflection because if it actually "drives you mad", like you said, that people can have an issue with a new technology lapping up resources but won't also completely change their lifestyle, you might need to step back a bit (or touch grass)
Again, if your goal is to convince anyone to do anything rather than just berate them, you're doing a bad job. If your goal IS just to berate people, you must lead quite a miserable life.
As someone that hardly eats meat and basically never eats beef, I find the method of attacking people for being against the same thing as you just because they're not also against something else completely unhelpful. Purity testing every opinion is not going to save the planet
Ringed-necked ducks are absolutely gorgeous birds so to see one so close up in the herons green lay-by today, even if just for a 5-minute stop, was a real pleasure. Why do the yanks get all the good birds? π«
Walk from Woodford Lodge to dam after breakfast yielded a m goldeneye from dam, year β
bullfinch (m) over and 2 stonechats (year β
) at salt & malt. HGB: pochards, GCGs with the stunning male RNG also all year β
s.
Still missing any egrets from year list and somehow saw NONE the entire time π±
Going for breakfast at Woodford Lodge tomorrow so it's mandatory I go and see that ring-necked duck in herons green bay
Fascinating turn that my mum found my old diary for our Cali & Florida trips where I noted all birds we saw. Apparently skimmer, black-footed albatross and frigatebird are all on my life list! And sooty shearwater last year wasn't actually a lifer!
Throwback to when I got published in the Daily Mirror with a fake agony aunt letter
Walk round Buttermere usually pretty birdless. Managed a giant flock of fieldfares, tufted ducks, 3 goosanders, common gulls, a singing dipper on the lakeside, and, amazingly 90% sure a bloody MERLIN flew overhead and across the lake (jackdaw-sized, falcon-shaped, all brown). My first 1 in years
FINALLY seen my first coal tit of the year. 2 days ago got my first siskins. Both in my parents' garden which is always swarming with my birds. Always several siskins on the feeders despite no conifers around
Tears of joy! SCOTLAND HAS JUST PASSED SWIFT BRICKS INTO LAW unanimously!
4 years of asking England & Scotland sorts it in a month led by ACE β¦βͺ MARK RUSKELL MSPβ¬β© β₯οΈThe RELIEF is unreal! Tell England to follow π΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώby emailing PlanningPolicyConsultation@communities.gov.uk now!WOOP!
Every ebird checklist in England should be read with the assumption that there were also at least 45 woodpigeons present.
On episode 1 of season 5 Stranger Things. Eurasian wren singing in the background. May have to stop there. Completely broke my immersion
