My Best Footage of 2024

 Hi everyone and happy new year!

2024 was probably just as good as 2023 for the blog, if not even better. Whether I'm out in the field or have gotten something exciting on the camera trap, 2024 has resulted in some of my best footage yet. This is my personal top ten but it might be very different to yours. Let's get into the top ten.

10. Daylight Bat

For me, the number ten spot goes to this bat I saw in broad daylight at a lake near my house. It was the first bat on the blog and something I thought was really cool.

9. Flying Great Egret

One of my most recent videos, this one of a great egret flying at Doxey marshes deserves the number nine spot in my opinion as it was the first time I had ever seen a great egret before. This video not only shows off the size of the great egret, but the whole view from the hide we were sat in and you can see the cattle egrets and shelducks it flies past. The whole trip was really good and I will be going back to Doxey a few times this year. 

8. October Fox

Surprisingly, we only got one day-time fox on the camera trap this year, but the one we did get was a great video and doesn't need much explanation why it is my top ten.

7.Little Egret Chase

I know I have already had an egret in my top ten this year but this video I took on my visit to Seaton Wetlands was too good not to include in my top ten. Little egrets are great birds and this video of one chasing another away is great and demonstrates the great zoom of my camera well.

6. Ringed Teal

This year I have seen loads of new species of waterfowl for the first time, including egyptian geese, common teal, shoveler, the little grebe and plenty more. To pick one of them for the top ten, I was originally going to pick the wigeons I saw at Swaledale. This is because I had been wanting to see one for years and this was the first time I had. However, after a very recent visit to Sandbach Flashes SSI I have changed my mind. This is because I saw three (one male and two females) escaped, South American Ringed Teals. I think they represent all the new waterfowl species I have seen this year as they are one I actually went searching for and found. They are definitely my favourite waterfowl species I have seen this year. 

5.Stag in the Snow

This time last year (in 2024) I would be shocked if I knew that we would get more roe deer than badgers or foxes on the camera trap this year. I have picked one for the top ten, and I have decided that it is this video of a stag in the snow. I have picked it because we don't often get stags on the camera and this was the first time we had ever had one at night ( we usually get does, and we had one at night in the summer). It was also snowing in November and the stag appeared just at the right time as it started to fall.

4. Red Kite

Like the fox, this one doesn't need much explaining. It was the first time I had ever recorded a red kite and they are just really good-looking birds with a massive wingspan of up to 195cm.

3. The Sparrowhawk

Not only was this the first time I had ever recorded a sparrowhawk, it was also the best bird I have ever had in my garden. I'm sure a lot of people who have had sparrowhawks in their garden would agree with me that it is very exciting. And I only had to go as far as my bedroom window.

2. Fallow Deer Fawn in the Forest of Dean

My trip to the Forest of Dean was unsuccessful in finding wild boar, but the camera trap did pick up a herd of fallow deer which passed by. However, more often a doe and her fawn walked past. I really enjoyed my trip to the Dean and we will hopefully be going back this year to try and find some boar.

1. Badger Fight

Just a few days before my birthday the camera trap picked up a badger fight by the sett. These fights are very rarely recorded and I was really lucky to capture it. It will remain one of my best videos of all time and is without doubt my favourite footage of 2024.

That is all for 2024. Thank you for reading my posts over the year.

2025

What do I want for 2025?

Well, this time last year I said I wanted to record more badgers and foxes which I did and will continue doing. I also said I wanted to film some wild rabbits which I managed to do. Same for the roe deer (that was the biggest success) and to film even more birds which I definitely manged. 

There was one thing I wanted to do but sadly failed. That was to record wild boar in the Forest of Dean, which will remain the number one target for 2025.

Here are some new targets for me:

1) Record some daylight badgers at the badger set.

2) Try and find a fox den.

3) I would love to get a roe deer fawn on the camera trap.

4)  Record any new type of bird of prey. I would love Ospreys which you can see at Rutland Water.

5)  The bird I want to see the most this year is the RSPB's logo; the avocet. Spoonbills, dippers and water rails are also high up the list.

6)  Find even more species of waterfowl.

7) Any reptiles or amphibians. I would love to record an adder.

8)  Have fun and discover more species I have never seen before.

That is all for today's post. Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading!

Doxey Gadwall - End of Year Birding

 Hi everyone, hope you all had a nice Christmas, and are going to have a nice new year. I didn't plan this trip until yesterday, so consider it a nice end-of-year treat. If you remember, we went to Doxey Marshes in November and saw lots of new birds. This time, we didn't see quite as much as we did last time, but we did see some nice birds we have already seen which are quite rare, and another species of duck I had never seen before.

The first birds we saw were a great egret and a grey heron. 

Here is the heron:

Here is the great egret footage we got:

There was also a flock of roosting cormarants. 

There were lots of teal about, and even a kingfisher, but unfortunatley it was too fast to get footage of. This next video is of a pair of shoveler in the distance.

The two other people in the hide even pointed out a pintail. It was really far away and I probably wouldn't have seen it if they didn't tell me. If you remember, I saw my first flock of pintail in the last post at Sandbach Flashes.

There was a flock of gulls consisting of herring, black-headed and great-black-backed.

My favourite birds I saw today were another species of duck which I had seen for the first time. It was a pair of gadwalls, and this time It was me spotted them. The males are the greyer ones, and are one of the only male ducks which are as dull as the females. 

The final thing we saw in the hide was a flock of snipe.

After leaving the hide we walked over to the screen in the middle of a reedbed. There was a huge flock of lapwings flying over. 

Just as we were about to leave, I saw another pintail on my final scan through my binoculars. It was quite far away, but you can see it bobbing up and down.

That is all for today's post. I know I said this last time, but I do think this will be the last post of 2024 so have a happy new year and look out for my top ten favourite bits of footage from 2024. I have also put the camera trap out over Christmas and will pick it up next year. It is not in its usual spot -  I have decided to put it in the spot where we got the footage for the post 'badger banger' (click here to see that post).

Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading. See you next year!

A South American Duck in the UK?

 *this is part two of two posts - go check out my last post at Sandbach Flashes SSI.

Hi everyone, we will continue from where we left off in the last post.

After recording the song birds we went over the road to another lake. The first bird to stand out was a beatiful curlew.

Not a great video but here is a shoveler from very far away:

A long-tailed tit:

We also got some cracking teal footage:

If you read the last post you would know that there was one species of duck that I was looking for. On their website the site had reported two ringed teals, a bird which definitely did not belong here seeing as they are usually found in South America. That means that there is one unhappy duck owner out there whose ringed teals have escaped. Two birders came over to the lake I was watching and said they were looking for the ringed teal. Almost instantly one of them found it through their scope (much better than anything I had). He let me have a look but I knew that my camera wouldn't be able to record it. They were also very hard to pick out in a big flock of wigeons. However, further down the road it turned out you got a much better view of them. And it turned out that there wasn't just two, there was actually three; one male and two females. 

Here is some of the footage I got - the male is the grey one in the middle with a brown back and on one of the videos you can see the two females to the side of him which are darker and have a pale patch on their faces.

Sorry, the videos are a little shaky; it was quite far away. This is the one with just the male.

Here is the one with the females as well.

Just as I was about to head back someone called me over as they had seen a pintail (another species of duck). This was the first time I had ever seen one before. A small flock of them were very far away so the the quality isn't great.

That's all for today's post. I wonder if ringed teal will ever become established in the UK just like mandarin ducks have? It would involve a few escapes but it could happen. I will try and get the camera trap out for Christmas and of course New Year. I can't promise Christmas but I am sure I will be able to get it out before the new year. Thank you for reading all my posts over 2024, and have a nice Christmas. Stay tuned for the post where we look back at my top ten favourite bits of footage from 2024 which should release on new year's day. Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading!

Sandbach Flashes SSI

*This is part one of two posts, part two will be releasing tommorow.

Hi everyone, today I have been to a place not far from where I live ( somehow I only found out about it a week ago) called Sandbach Flashes SSI. It was a really successful trip and I managed to get some of my best footage yet of wigeons, teals, curlews and some songbirds. After looking on their website at recent sightings there was one that caught my eye - a ringed teal. Admittedly I had never heard of one and after doing some research I found out it was a South American duck. I still didn't have very high chances of seeing them so I didn't get my hopes up. The first thing I saw was a massive flock of lapwings. (There is no sound on some of my videos from when the other birders were talking).

Another bird which there was loads of were wigeons.

There was a big flock of wigeons, mixed in with some bigger shelducks and cormarants.

The next bird was probably the best-looking one of the day. It wasn't a South American duck; it was a much more common Asian species - the mandarin duck. I have had them on the blog before, but the male was going through an eclipse (where they lose their bright colour and look a bit more like females). This time it was a bright and colourful male.

A nice robin:

There was also some other songbirds on the feeders, including goldfinches, great tits, blue tits and even a greenfinch up a tree.

That is all for today's post - part two will be out tomorrow.

Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading!

Stag in the Snow

 Hi everyone, we have some exciting animals in today's post so stick around to see some nice footage. This is also the last post where we are celebrating my 100th post so remember to leave a comment. I left the camera out for two weeks instead of one like usual because the weather was rubbish. Here's a quick look at what's to come later in the post:

The first thing we got was a squirrel:

A few days later, we got a picture of an up-close badger. It ran away before the video set off so this was all we got:

Three nights later we got an exciting new bit of deer footage. It was the stag, and it was the first time we had ever got one at night. It was also snowing and it came right up close to the camera!

In the day time we got a robin in the snow.

About a week later we got another deer, this time it was a doe in the day.

The final thing we got was a spider in the bottom left corner.

I think it wanted to make a cobweb in my camera.

To say I had it out for two weeks, we didn't get much. Then again, the weather was bad, I had put no food out and the footage we did get was good quality.

Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading!

Threegrets

 Hi everyone, this post is part two of my trip to Doxey Marshes. If you haven't seen part one, go and check out my last post. We are still celebrating 100 posts on Joe's Wildlife Blog so remember to leave a comment after reading this post. You may wonder what on earth the title means but that will soon become clear.

On one of the islands there was a pair of grey herons. However, they weren't what I was excited about; there was a flock of about 6 Lapwings resting on the island by them.

We also saw some cormorants. 

Here is a goosander:

I have had lots of new species of waterfowl on my blog lately (we found our first goosander last year so they're not too recent) and here is another to add to the score. It is called the shoveler, and has one of the biggest beaks of British duck. In the first video you may see some much smaller teals swimming around it, and in the second video you will get a better close-up.

Just before we going to move on to the next hide, I noticed something. What I thought were just three more great white egrets hunched up were actually a separate species and one I had never seen before - cattle egrets. There were three of them, and one had become more active than the other two. They are shorter and stockier than great white or little egrets. 

We had already seen two of three British egrets or 'threegrets' and all we needed to see now was a little egret. Despite there not being much there, the second hide ticked off the third and final egret.

Here's one final video of a great white egret and a little egret together.

That is all for today's post. I hope you enjoyed this visit to Doxey Marshes. It was the first time I have ever been. However, it is probably not the last as it isn't too far from home. I have put the camera trap out twice now and have got nothing exciting. It is out now and hopefully we will get something good this time - stay tuned for a camera trap post coming soon (hopefully).  

Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading!

Doxey Marshes

 Hi everyone, today I have been to Doxey Marshes to try and spot some rare birds. I have just reached my 100th post and over the next two or three posts the celebrations will continue. I saw so much there that I have had to split this post into two parts - stay tuned for part two coming soon.

As soon as we arrived I saw a bird I had never seen before (in the UK - there is a chance that I had seen one in Italy although it was very far away and hard to tell) in one of the lakes; a great white egret. 

On the next lake we saw a juvenile great crested grebe. 

We carried on around to the first hide. On the way we saw another great egret fly over the marshes.

Once we arrived at the first hide I was shocked by how much there was to see. The one which caught my eye first was a shelduck. I had only ever seen one before at Seaton wetlands and that was a juvenile, so it was nice to see another one - and my first ever adult one.

On the other side of the lake I saw another great white egret!

Suddenly it flew towards us and you could see how big it was in flight.

A few minutes later the egret came into sight again.

That wasn't everything we saw at Doxey Marshes. However, that is everything for today's post. Part two will be out tomorrow and is just as exciting. Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading!