The Young Birder

  Some of you may already know that I've been doing regular visible migration watches (vismig) counts, both from my garden in Herefordshire and from Much Marcle Ridge, around 15 minutes drive away from my home.  In this post, I'm going to go through some of the species which I've seen over the course of the Autumn so far from both locations. Before I start though, I must first mention my  friend Dan Webb, who has helped, taught and encouraged me a huge amount - his enthusiasm for the subject  is infectious!  I can't thank him enough. Vismig  can be observed almost anywhere, though it is best to watch from a natural high point, like Marcle Ridge, which funnels the birds around it in the right weather conditions or [preferably] a costal headland such as  Spurn Point in East Yorkshire.  Spurn is one of the best places to observe vismig in Britain, as the geography of that area is perfectly suited to receive large numbers of migrants. I've b...

I'd gone to WWT Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, really just to discuss volunteering but since I was there...I thought I'd do a bit of birding as well! There was nothing showing on the sightings page so I didn't think I'd see much.  I made my way up to the estuary tower, where I met a couple of other birders who were scanning for the American Golden Plover which had been seen the day before.  We didn't manage to see the plover, but a Wheatear , Marsh Harrier , 20+ Ruff and a steady trickle of Redwings moving through kept us interested.  I was thinking about moving on to the next hide when me and Mike King (his blog can be found here:  https://theglosterbirder.co.uk/ ) saw a grey warbler, feeding in the scrub below us. Just before it disappeared back into the Blackthorn, I managed to grab a few quick record shots; with the views we had, we couldn't tell if our bird was Barred or a Garden Warbler.  Only Mike and I saw it initially, so my photos were very useful;...