Peter Jones Wildlife blog

After last week's "Pom in the storm"! at Keyhaven, I could have expected to drift back to quieter birding, but I had an even better afternoon finding two nice birds at Pagham Harbour. First up was a Short-eared Owl being mobbed in broad daylight. It later settled on the marsh and showed well. Then on my return journey.. (implying I'd walked past this one), a Wryneck flew across the path and fed in the long grass for a few minutes. Managed to get the scope on it, and a photo too.. must get into the habit of taking my camera out, the phone-scoping is terrifyingly tense! Met another birder on the way back and shared the news, so hopefully he got to see it too. Sunday morning, I headed to MedMerry. Lots about including 2 Ring Ouzels, amongst the more routine Corn Bunting, Stonechats, Yellowhammers etc. I did miss a Yellow-browed Warbler, but wasn't complaining. Bumped into yesterday's birder, who did indeed see the Wryneck which is always go...

I've had a few local trips in the Campervan recently, all to the Hampshire coast, which I reckon is my best chance to find rarer birds. So far, I've walked over 30 miles, and had two extreme soakings! but finally today my luck seemed to improve along the coast at Keyhaven. I was actually thinking, "birding has got harder over the years, I never seem to find anything these days, are my expectations too high etc". Passing the spot where I did once find a Grey Phalarope, in similar crappy weather. I'm not unrealistic, I don't expect firsts for Hampshire on my walks, but a Scarce or two would be nice. Then I resigned myself to the fact that at least these walks are good for the mind, and ridding myself of all that work throws at me through the week. No sooner had I had these thoughts, a Great Skua passed just off the saltmarsh, and landed out of sight. More like it! Seawatching in Hampshire is not the easiest of choices with the Isle Of Wight placing most o...

My Oregon 450 GPS was about 10 years old, and starting to look it's age. A shame as it had OS maps for GB, and still worked pretty well. The battery life wasn't too good though, and I was having difficulty seeing the screen as my eyesight isn't as good as it was 10 years ago. I was contemplating replacing with the Montana, which is a huge GPS, and expensive too, but fortunately settled on an Oregon 700, with decent battery life, and a very sharp clear screen. This model came without maps, (apart from the basemap which is not very good at all). But I am downloading compatible Open Street maps free from  http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ , which are absolutely fine, and the reason I insist on Garmin devices. most other brands charge a lot of money for detailed maps. All works fine. a very accurate GPS, weather info, Barometer, and custom profiles for different activities, which is handy. Birding, Bat surveys and Snake surveys all need different data, and this can...

Spent a few days birding the Hampshire coast between Hurst and Calshot. Such a superb bit of coastline with plenty of wader habitat. The days started well with 2 Smooth Snakes on my final survey for 2019, both Juveniles. The smarter of the two photo'd below. Over the days, I covered more than 20 miles in total, and it was hard going at times. Waders were fairly low in variety, Spotted Redshank probably the highlight. Peregrines were regular along the coast, along with Marsh Harrier sightings, and a few Wheatears, and Yellow Wagtails the best of the Migrants. Great White Egret was a nice surprise at dusk amongst a big flock of about 50 Little Egret.