Peter Jones Wildlife blog

Bar-backed Partridge This trip was a couple of years in the making, and by the time it came around, I had a good idea of exactly where I wanted to go, and what to hopefully see. My plan was to fly into Bangkok, and head straight for Phetchaburi region. Spending a day or so looking for Spoon-billed Sandpiper and other waders, then moving inland to Kaeng Krachen for the forest birds. With a day and a half to return to Bangkok, I could focus on some birds I have missed. Apart from Bangkok, the roads / driving was very relaxed, and distances weren't that great. Ebird has revolutionised birding trips, and it was quite easy to find hotspots along the way to check out. Similarly, AirBnb has made it very straightforward to find cheap, safe, convenient accommodation at short notice. The birding throughout the time was very enjoyable, with a mix of: 1. Many new species, including Broadbills, Pitta, Crake, and Bitterns. plus the rare waders around Pak Thale. 2. Species that had eluded me on p...

Sunday was sunny and well below freezing, nice Winter weather. A few Med Gulls on the shore at Lepe, and fortunately I picked up two species that had been seen on-and-off recently: An Avocet at Stansore, and a Goshawk overhead. Other additions for the year were Moorhen(!), Reed Bunting(!!), Jay (!!!), and Little Egret(!!!!). An extreme example why trying to see a maximum number of species in a day is always flawed with some common species just going AWOL. I'm pretty sure Lepe has a 100 species day possible, with spring migrants, and a lot of luck! for now I'm on 86 species, which is good for my standards in January. Photos with the P1000 are still coming along nicely. The digital zoom gets results, unlike the P900. There has definitely been a fix there! The Kestrel was a distant dot, and the still captured from video at 3000mm, plus 2.4 digital zoom on top of that! The Stonechat was much closer, and handheld.   

A video testing the extreme range of the p1000. 

Just getting a feel for how things look on a big screen

Sunday morning had the best of the weekend weather, so I headed to Lepe in search of a few common winter species still missing from my challenge. Turned out ok with Marsh Harrier and Gadwall present, plus Egyptian Goose which wasn't really on my radar, but not unusual anywhere these days. In other news, I traded my p900 in for a P1000. Had considered this a while back but was kind of forced into it as the p900 seems to make labouring noises during zooming, and is presumably unsupported nowadays. The P1000 has familiar features, but is a much better camera. I was pleasantly surprised in that the digital zoom is usable right to the maximum extreme, on a tripod. The Egyptian Goose below was in the digital zoom range, although looks to be struggling when viewed at full size.

After a couple of enjoyable mornings at Lepe towards the end of the year which included Spoonbill, Red-breasted Merganser, Firecrest, Merlin, and Great Northern Diver, I decided to buy an annual car park ticket, and spend a bit more time there in 2023. It is a location that I visited regularly a few years ago, and recall seeing Slavonian Grebe, Black Brant, Turtle Dove, Nightingale and bizarely, an escaped Turkey Vulture soaring overhead! Others have had good success here with Caspian Tern, and  Rose Coloured Starling over the years. This coincided nicely with Patchwork Challenge, a competition between birders to encourage low carbon, local birding, as opposed to travelling the country. So, I have drawn up a 3km square including the coast between Beaulieu Estuary and the private stretch of SSSI beach between Lepe and Calshot, the Blackwater flooded fields, and some farmland and woodland inland of Lepe. My first day of 2023 went well..  https://ebird.org/checklist/S125189275 Hi...

A week holiday in South Africa with my youngest daughter. This was originally planned for 2020, but postponed a couple of times for obvious reasons. Game drives were excellent in both Pilanesberg, and Madikwe, and a host of good mammals and birds were seen. The bird species total hampered slightly due to the same open plains habitat throughout the week. Photos and videos in link https://photos.app.goo.gl/RZSemrx7jkyPDdEn8

I took the moth trap on this year's family holiday to the South of France. We stayed on the Mediterranean coast near the Spanish border, but to be honest, the campsite wasn't particularly good for wildlife compared to previous campsites. The site itself was very built up, and the surrounding area, although looking promising on Google maps, was a bit light in diversity. I did see the following highlights... Turkish Gecko Lang's short tailed blue Coypu Red-rumped Swallow Southern Wartbiter The moth trap included: Praying Mantis Bright Wave Portland Ribbon Wave Blair's Mocha Vestal (central France) Oak Processionary Small Marbled Scarce bordered Straw Tree lichen Beauty Marbled Green Pearly Underwing Turnip Long legged Tabby Delightful Marbled Handmaid idaea cervantaria achyra nudalis parascotia nisseni stemmatophora brunnealis oncocera semirubella (Central France) acrobasis tumidana Which looking back, wasn't a bad tally of moths, was expecting huge number...

Third year running, I headed out to New Forest in search of Moonwort. Despite having found grid references of their location, and even worked out the exact area from photos posted online of happy surveyors counting them, I'd drawn a blank previously. This year, the area has been loosely marked off with piles of dirt, but it still took an hour of searching before I wandered into the area beyond the "line of molehills". Within a minute I'd found Moonwort and Adder's Tongue a minute or so later. Smaller than I was expecting, which doesn't help, but nice to see, finally.

A very good Autumn, with plenty of moth trapping in the garden. The highlight a fairly tatty, but nevertheless spectacular Clifden Nonpareil. Other highlights came from a week in Norfolk, timed well with some East winds. At Winterton, I was lucky to find a Red-breasted Flycatcher, right place at the right time as it flew round the edge of some dense sycamores, then took over half an hour to get identifiable views. (A very long 30 minutes!). Could have quite easily walked past it, as indeed a few other birders had done so, but it showed well to a few of us eventually. Spent a couple of days seawatching prior to this, as the winds were strong, and from the north. Highlight was a Sabine's Gull, several of which were being reported around the coast, but I failed to see any Long tailed Skua which also seemed to be reported during the week. The other highlight from my week was a Camberwell Beauty flying strongly west, over my head and out of sight, as I walked to the ice crea...

 Had a few days free to visit Scotland, and decided to try and see some new Dragonfly species, plus a few Orchids restricted to the North of the UK. I was in my campervan, so the timetable was very flexible, and subject only to the weather. The initial couple of days had a good forecast, so I focussed on the Dragonflies. First stop was Allt Mhuic butterfly reserve, in search of Azure Hawker. I was unsuccessful, except for a likely individual flying lower over the boggy moorland. I did however, see Chequered Skipper which was a massive bonus, being right at the end of their flight season, and quite unexpected. Moths put in a good appearance with Argent and Sable, Small Argent and Sable, plus Satin Lutestring. Finally some good flowers here including Heath Fragrant Orchid and Common Butterwort. The hydro-electric dam is currently being built right down the middle of the reserve, which looks to have affected the central area. I decided to move on, thinking I had a better chance of mor...

  Turned my attention over the last few months to trying to break my Bird day record of 100, which, according to ebird is now 99! Not sure where I lost a species, but gave me more incentive to get over 100 in a day. I try to just do my own thing, and limit myself to 20 miles from home. This isn't a big deal as it includes the coast, Keyhaven and Pennington, the New Forest, Blashford, and the Test Valley. These areas have kept me entertained for over 10 years, so plenty to find, especially Keyhaven and Pennington which is always likely to give a big number of species in 2 or 3 hours. Winter attempts fell just short, in the 90s. Short days, and finding the New Forest very difficult didn't help. Then the lockdown put paid to any further attempts. May, however, with longer days, and the mass of summer visitors turned the challenge on its head. First attempt I got 106, and this weekend I hit 110! My route was New Forest at dawn, Keyhaven, Blashford, Stockbridge area, Fishlake Meado...

 Autumn seems to have whizzed by. I had two weekends away, one in Norfolk, and one in Cornwall. Both staying in the campervan. Not many photos to show for all the walking, but finding a Yellow-browed Warbler on both trips was just about note worthy these days! Norfolk also had a Red Backed Shrike, at Titchwell, and a leucistic starling, which was just a Common sadly. Surprisingly few waders at Titchwell. Cornwall, also had Firecrest and Chough.

Got in touch with a local who has a lot of success finding Adders and more recently, Great Crested Newts locally. The Newt I've never seen before, but now I have a better idea of their habitat, and how to find them, should be more successful in coming years. Today, we just found a single, young male. A lot of fungi in the area, so a trip with my various fungi field guides might make for a very frustrating afternoon!

  I find my search for specific flowers never goes smoothly, and I average about 8 miles in search of any chosen species! This is in contrast to my grasshopper quest in the summer where the bat detector was picking up the target species with minutes of leaving the van, in most cases! So today I went to Lepe, and Calshot in search of Little-Robin, a smaller flowered, rarer version of Herb Robert. It's another species that has a very limited distribution in the UK, with New Forest / South coast holding the prime locations. Lepe came up blank, but I did see Wheatears, and Sea Spurge. Calshot wasn't looking too promising either until I found a good sized plant with a few flowers against one of the Calshot buildings. Sea Club Rush, and a few common plants also seen in the area. I didn't venture into the best bit of the spot today.. the campsite looked packed. Photos

  A couple more days out, with plenty to see as we head into Autumn. I ventured over to Stoborough Heath, stopping in the New Forest on the way. Was unsuccessful, again, looking for Field Gentian, but did manage to see Coral Necklace and Pennyroyal. Stoborough and Hartland was pretty good, following in the footsteps of the author of the Purbeck Flowers book. The trick with this book is to work out what you can see at each site, and create waypoints before your trip. This way, you can pretty much move from site to site picking off the flowers. Some were seen, others were over for the year, others are probably no longer present at some sites, but it worked mostly.  Finally caught up with Field Gentian at Wilverley, I think the problem was being a bit too enthusiastic. Sure people were seeing plants, but very early. It's often better to wait a couple of weeks for more flowers and bigger flowers to appear. They certainly arent that difficult once they have started to hit their pea...

  Decided to spend the weekend on a round tour of Chilterns, Wiltshire and New Forest, with a few targets in mind. Also spent 2 nights in the campervan a novelty this year, but worthwhile as driving out the Friday night before cuts down the daily mileage and makes such weekends possible. Chilterns, I was searching for Gentians, and did see Autumn Gentian at Aston Rowant, together with Chalkhill Blue, Adonis Blue and Silver spotted Skipper. I left a bit deflated as I had hoped to see Chiltern Gentian also, but luckily found another site, courtesy of Twitter, which was absolutely heaving with Chiltern Gentians, wow, very memorable.  The weekend took a slight nosedive after these highlights, with no joy for Wart-Biter, and no sign of Field Gentian at Wilverley in the New Forest on the Sunday morning. (I have another area of Wilverley to try in the coming weekends). However, plenty of other wildlife seen at these great places. photos

Much of my flower hunting is frustrated by a semi-secrecy of rare flower sites. It is only on arrival, that I realise the vagueness of directions, often sucked in by comments such as "very near the path", which turn out to be any of several miles of paths! More often than not there is just enough information to tempt you to visit, but have a very slim chance of finding what you are looking for. Makes for some great challenges, and I always get there in the end. I get the need for caution with people digging up flowers, but if I can find them, someone with poor motives will also find the flowers based on the info out there. However, the book "The Wild Flowers of the Isle of Purbeck" bucks this trend and has excellent directions to some great plants. I spent a morning in Studland Heath, and finally saw Great Sundew, fairly easily, after several hours in the New Forest without luck! Other highlights were Sea Lavender and a few other coastal species plus Royal Fern. Pho...

 August annual leave, which should have been spent in South Africa!, left me with a few days to spend locally. I set myself a target of 22 new species of birds, flowers, moths, grasshoppers, anything! 2 a day. As it usually the case with these games, it starts off looking easy, then ends up a complete nightmare being stuck 1 or 2 short as the end of the week looms. My trips were mostly into the New Forest, and together with a moth trap session in the garden I eventually stumbled past the 22! Highlights were Light Crimson underwing moth, Grey Bush Cricket, Woodland and Mottled Grasshopper, Marsh Gentian, Oblong Leaved Sundew, and Brown Hairstreak (at Shipton Bellinger). Enjoyable, but hopefully I get to South Africa next year. photos

Weekends are to be planned carefully at the moment. The number of people descending on the New Forest, and coast on sunny weekends is quite incredible, so trips to more obscure areas is a better option. I headed to Broughton Down on Sunday morning hoping to see Stripe Winged Grasshopper. Was fortunate, even though the bat detector was only picking up ( I think) Meadow, Common Green, and possibly Long winged Conehead. Also a smart micro moth, Pyrausta nigrata