Peter Jones Wildlife blog

A nice male Firecrest showing well in woodland this morning. I am lucky to have at least one territory within walking distance of home, but even with regular visits and dog walks to the area, they can often go missing. Also plenty of Redwings, plus 2 or 3 Mistle Thrushes, but very few Finches about at the moment.

Worth keeping an eye on....

I spent a couple of hours in the local area on Sunday.. Best finds were: 2 Stonechats still wintering on farmland near the house, Dunbridge Lake had a single Aythya Duck which after brief excitement and a jog back to the car for my scope, turned out to be a 1st Winter Tufted Duck, Palestine / Jack's Bush area of farmland on the edge of Salisbury Plain was pretty quiet compared to typical Winter afternoon/dusk visits: No Raptors or Owls, and no Corn Buntings seen today, but a very close Grey Partridge (which I almost trod on having mistaken it for a stone), and 2 Yellowhammers, plus a decent flock of Fieldfare heading to roost. Also 1 Fox and two Roe Deer.

Great story. Would love to see a wild Snowy Owl one day http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-very-lucky-snowy-owl-and-in-owl-in.html

The first Redpolls of the Winter to visit our garden, brightened up a miserable rainy day. 2 Males and 1 Female today on the feeders, plus 4 Goldfinches.

Finished the year at Skidmore just before dusk: 1 Peregrine 1 Kestrel 1 Water Rail Plenty of Starlings in a pre-roost plus a few Redwings and a Buzzard. #dogwalk, #Skidmore

Dark-Bellied Brent Geese at Calshot. (Eos 600d, 70-300L) #Calshot, #video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvCtrGxSkNo&feature=share

An afternoon dog walk around Fishlake Meadows, on the North edge of Romsey. Plenty of wildfowl including Pintail, Pochard, and Teal. Plus a single Snipe. As darkness fell, a stakeout of the flooded path produced good views of a Water Rail. At least 6 singing Cetti's Warblers was a decent count. #Fishlake, #dogwalk

Quite a fruitful dog walk along Hoe Lane on Christmas Day: A very vocal Lesser Spotted Woodpecker was the highlight even though I couldn't pick it out. Also a Peregrine showing well, 1 Meadow Pipit and a few hundred Redwings #Toothill, #dogwalk

#Hurst #Seawatch, Dunbridge lake, and the Leica #Duovid A couple of Sunday mornings spent in the field recently.. A few hours sea watching at Hurst ticked over, with a good selection of wildfowl including Eider, Common Scoter, Pintail, GoldenEye and Wigeon plus Red-throated Diver and Red-Breasted Merganser. Closer to home, an hour at Dunbridge lake was fairly uneventful with just 16 Wigeon the highlight. I'm getting used to a new pair of binoculars: traded in my old Leica trinovids for a used Leica Duovid (8+12x42). For anyone unfamiliar with this model, you twist both barrels to choose either 8x42 or 12x42.. 8x being good for close or cluttered habitat, 12x coming into it's own for more open habitat. Both magnifications are very sharp and clear, and although pretty heavy, the bins are well balanced. Hand holding at 12x is quite easy. So they look to be a good buy, and maybe surprisingly, they arent more popular.

A link to my now archived birding blog

Originally shared by Peter Jones

Turnstones are pretty common and very tame all around the Hurst / Keyhaven area. This bird was feeding on the sea wall, so I didn't even have to lie down to get level with it. #photo #Keyhaven

Hello, We have now moved to: https://plus.google.com/communities/104943347078468838032 Best Wishes, Peter

My last Wheatear of the Autumn. Possibly of the Greenland race. #video   Originally shared by Peter Jones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxRaYhfJXEA&feature=autoshare

Spent a couple of fairly quiet seawatching sessions at Hurst recently. Very few seabirds other than a trickle of Med Gulls. Keyhaven has been pretty quiet too with just a Merlin of note. Closer to home, at least 3 Stonechats have returned to local farmland west of North Baddesley. These are a very welcome sight as a mixture of habitat loss and bad winters had pretty much wiped them out in much of the surrounding area. #Hurst #Seawatch

A week off from work in the middle of September, and I was in the mood to visit Islands in search of Migrants! First up was a Marinelife Survey to Lundy. Great trip in good company, the sightings can be seen at the following web page:  http://www.marine-life.org.uk/ilfracombe-or-bideford-lundy/2013/09/14(1) The Island itself really impressed me. Very remote, but with camping facilities, and a smattering of migrants including Whinchat, Willow Warbler, Spotted Flycatcher, and White Wagtail. didn't explore the whole island, and some distant areas of trees looked to have potential. Certainly enough to keep me busy on an overnight stay in the future. I left the Marinelife survey and Ilfracombe, heading West. I originally planned to take my tent to the Scillies, but the heavy gales forecast for Sunday and Monday put paid to these plans, and looking back at bird sightings from the Scillies, I had a close escape. It looks to have been a struggle!  Instead, I decided on some heavy seaw...

At the end of August, I had a week's leave from work coinciding with a pretty noticeable fall of migrants locally. I didn't have much hope for the last week of August being a mecca for migrants, but so far, it has been the highlight of my Autumn, and all were seen within walking distance from the house! A 50 acre horse paddock and fallow-land which is private, but which I've managed to arrange access to, held the bulk of the sightings with 3 Redstarts, Lesser Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Whinchat and Wheatear all putting in an appearance together with Tree Pipit overhead, and a decent number of Whitethroats (which breed in the more overgrown areas of the field). Further afield, near Ashfield, another paddock and small dell always seems to have a migrant or two lurking, and this week I managed 2 Redstarts and 4 Spotted Flycatchers, plus Blackcaps and a Hobby. More recent visits in the midst of some serious Westerly winds have drawn a complete blank in both areas.

Had to rebuild my Netbook this weekend. I gave up on Windows a while back, and have not regretted moving to Linux one bit. This latest PC is built using Ubuntu 12.4.  One utility that I am finding really useful is Insync (  https://www.insynchq.com/ ). These days, all my data including my wildlife records database,  survey forms, and map references all reside on Google Drive. Insync is a really easy way to seamlessly integrate Google Drive onto my desktop, and guess what? It works on Linux too, so I'm more than happy. Very easy to download and install. The Insync icon now resides on my desktop panel, telling me that my Google Drive is up to date with my PC. Recent changes I have made are listed, and uploading to the cloud couldn't be simpler: Just drag files into the insync Google Drive folder. 10/10, well worth checking out, Best Wishes, Peter ps. check back soon for some bird news as the Autumn Migration period starts to enter full swing!

Exactly a year ago I was in Shetland battling a birdless North wind, and finding very little out of the norm. This year I was determined that Spring would prove a more fruitful season, and so far, the birding, mainly along the Hampshire coast has been pretty good. Certainly as good as Shetland! And so, on a spur of the moment decision, I looked into heading to Finland to try and find Red-Flanked Bluetail, a species I have always wanted to see. Cheap flight routes weren’t easy to come across, but I eventually settled on Ryanair from Stansted to Tampere, then a hire car for the 5 days. Simple! My original plan was to head up to Vaaltavaara, and wait there until I saw a Bluetail! However, the 10 hour drive put me off, and I stumbled on some other good Bluetail sites about 6 hours from Tampere in the North Karelia region of finland. This together with reports from Siikalahti, “the best bird lake in Finland” and my itinerary was pretty much made up. The weather was quite windy when I touche...