River + Robin

 Just a quick post this week, firstly looking at some birds seen down at the river lately.

A pigeon:

Grey wagtail:

Patchwing was recorded down there too:

I think a deer was down there as well as I found some footprints but didn't get it on camera.

Here is a juvenile robin at a different location:

And finally here is a mouse:

That's all for today's post. Over the next few weeks there should be a post from sandbach flashes, one from the camera trap with loads of badger & fox footage and hopefully another camera trap post from a new location about a 45 minute drive from blog woods, as I'm trying to record some rarer species in this area. I'm planning on leaving it out for a few weeks so that post might not come for a while (if we even get anything). 

Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading!

Burton Birds

 Hi everyone, sorry this post is a bit late, but it is worth it due to what we've seen. I should have a few new camera trap posts, and even a post from a trip to sandbach flashes last week, but I thought that the trip to RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands would be the most exciting. I had three targets to see there - Avocets (which if you remember from the start of the year I said it is the bird I want to see the most in 2025),  marsh harriers (birds of prey that inhabit wetlands and will hunt small mammals, birds and reptiles/amphibians) and ruffs (hopefully a male one as they look really cool). 

The first bird I saw was a great egret on a pond as soon as we arrived:

There were also several avocets that you could see from the visitor center, but they were very far away and would have been hard to photograph through the glass window. There wasn't too much at the first proper hide - greylags, lapwings and quite a few little egrets:

We walked around to the final hide, at the other end of the reserve, and this one was by far the most active. There were lapwings, shelduck, little egrets and even some avocets. Unfortunatley, they were far away on the waters edge on the other side of the pool (apart from one which was resting in the middle of the water):

Suddenly, all the birds took off at the same time and a few seconds later a marsh harrier flew over. Not just one, but two - both of them juveniles. 

One of them landed in a tree, really far away but I still managed to get a few photos:

Despite scaring a lot of the birds away, the marsh harriers actually helped out as they scared the avocets much closer, right in front of the hide. I managed to loads of photos of them feeding, using their uniquely shaped beaks:

Here is a juveile avocet:

Here is a flock of lapwings:

After a while at that hide, we started to head back. I stopped off at the first hide again. There wasn't too much aside from another very distant avocet, a pair of herons and an oystercather. Here is the oystercatcher:

Back at the visitor center I saw some more avocets, loads of black-tailed godwits, another brief fly over from one of the marsh harriers and even a ruff. Unfortunatley it wasn't one of the males so it didn't have a big ring of feathers around it's neck. Anyway, here is the female ruff surrounded by godwits and several avocets in the background: 

After seeing the ruff, we'd ticked off all three targets and were ready to head home. The avocets and the marsh harrier were some of my favourite spots ever on the blog, and hopefully I'll head back to RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands soon. That's all for today's post, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading!

Fox Watch

 Hi everyone, me and my dad went out the other evening to the usual woods to try and see what we could record with the new camera. Almost straight away, we saw three of the young foxes in one of the fields. Two of them quickly ran off into the bushes but one stayed put and allowed us to get some nice shots.

We made it to the other field (near where the recent post "up in the woods" was filmed.), and found the rest of the family; the vixen and three other cubs. Here are some of the photos I took (some of them aren't amazing as I'm still getting used to the camera and how to use it):

This one is my favourite:

This last one is  another one of my favourites. The vixen was stood there for a moment, looking right back at me and my dad, and I took this photo:

So far, this has been my favourite moment/encounter for the blog this year, and adds to the already fantastic amount of fox footage we have had. Even when the light started to disappear, the foxes sometimes appeared again, and we managed to enjoy them for a good half an hour. Anyway, that's all for today's post, remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading!

Reed Bunting

 I was testing out a new high - quality camera and here is what I saw. This is not in the usual blog woods as it is in a different location a few kilometres away.

Here is a reed bunting, the highlight of this post:

Here is a heron that flew over: 

I also tested it out on some butterflies. The cabbage whites flew around too much to get a decent photo, but this ringlet stayed still enough for a fantastic shot:

I also took this photo of a few sheep to show the potential quality of some future footage compared to previous ones on my video camcorder. 

Finally here are a few photos I took of a very distant red kite that flew over my house the other day. I've seen it previously, and I'm aware that it has been in the area for a few weeks now. 

That's all for this week's post. Keep an eye out for more footage with the new camera - hopefully it means that there will more high quality footage on the blog.

Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading.