May 30th 2011

With the weather being poor for bird photography over the last week or so i turned my attention to a spot of moth trapping with last night being the best in a long while despite the rain from 1am onwards with 25+ species caught inc a few new for the garden (Highlights below)

Brown Silver-line

Grass Rivulet

Dark Arches

 Light Arches

Dot Moth

Small Clouded Brindle

 Brimstone

Green Carpet

Broad-barred White

May 18th 2011

Gave the Night Heron at Earlswood Lakes,Warks a 2nd go tonight after missing it last night & well worth the effort with the bird flying over giving distant views but still a Warks tick putting me on 235 for the county!! also seen 1 male Mandarin & at least 6 Common Tern.The Heron was then picked up showing better in the Springbrook area to the South of the lakes & gave great views for the small crowd...

  Mandarin                 

   Night Heron

        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

May 16th 2011

Went over to Weedon Bec,Northants on Sunday afternoon for the adult Black Stork & was rewarded with good flight views but no pics,but only the 2nd iv'e seen in Britain with the last being in 1990. Spent most of today at Shustoke Reservoir photographing the Black-throated Diver which after givin Kev Groocock & myself the runaround for several hrs finally came in & fed just ft from the shoreline!

May 14th 2011

The op went well & with good birds around i wasn't gonna waste the chance when good friend Steve Seal offered to come down from Stoke & drive me to the Great Northern Diver at Carsington Water,Derbys but 1st we had to try & get some images of the Black-throated Diver at Shustoke Reservoir,for over 3hrs we tried  but the bird wasn't playing ball & at 1 point we hadn't seen it for well over an hr,the only added bonus for me was 3 Sanderlings flying low thru (shame they didn't land) Anyway we decided to sit it out at the east end of the Reservoir when the bird just slowly swam towards us & proceeded to feed very close in giving cracking views

A well earned cuppa then we were on our way North,on arrival with the weather not looking to good & the wind increasing the chances didn't look good,after a while Steve went up to the visitor centre & the Staff couldn't have been more helpfull a few calls on the radio & we were sent in the right direction,the bird was showing off Lane End Hide where we had reasonable views of this stonking Summer plumaged Great Northern Diver (Many thanks to Steve for the driving & also the staff at Carsington who were fantastic)

May 13th 2011

Well only got an hrs sleep after my nightshift,i just wanted to get out & about before my op in the afternoon the target was the 1st summer Black-throated Diver at nearby Shustoke Reservoir found by Steve Hayne's the previous afternoon,on arrival i scanned the water for 20 mins or so with no joy so decided to walk down to the far end (east side) when i got there 1 photographer was already set up but hadn't seen the bird in the hr or so he'd been there!! so we had a chat for a while when from nowhere the diver popped up right in front of us!!!

May 12th 2011

Well did another moth trap last night about the 3rd this month & was finally rewarded with my 1st macros of the spring after drawing blanks,nothing spectacular but it's a start (Looks like my birding & photography will be taking an extended break from Fri as im due to have a small Op on my right hand,fingers crossed not to long before i can drive & pick my gear up again)

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Rustic Shoulder-knot

May 7th 2011

A walk round Draycote Water this morning in the pouring rain produced 1 Little Tern (My 1st in Warks for over 20yrs) 3 Black Tern,41 Common Tern,2 Common Sandpiper & 1 Dunlin also good numbers of Swift

May 3rd 2011

Started off at Napton Res this morning hoping for Hobby but no such luck so made the short hop over to Draycote where there was an impressive movement of both Common & Black Tern with Common Terns being into the mid 30's & Black Terns were coming & going all the time but was probably well in excess of 100 birds also a large movement of Swift,Northern Wheatear & Little Gulls also seen before heading for Shustoke on route i had a txt from Tom Perrins to say there was 5 Black Tern on site also 1 1st sum Little Gull (Which was joined by 2 ad in the evening)