The Young Birder

Hill Court Farm Nature Reserve  (aka Longdon Marsh) is  managed by  Worcestershire Wildlife Trust ( WWT) and is a mixture of wetland, grassland, woodland and hedgerow and has a variety of breeding and non-breeding birds throughout the year. As well as visiting regularly for my own birding, I do a monthly Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) count for the BTO; a count consists of recording all the different species and how many individuals are present, t his data then gets forwarded onto the BTO and WWT. I'm hoping to do regular posts on my blog with u pdates of what I observe as the year progresses  - I'll start off with the last few weeks... By early April, most of the Lapwing which wintered on the reserve have departed, though the resident birds will remain, hopefully, to breed.  The waterfowl activity on the scrape can attract predators like this Peregrine Falcon . It wasn't successful in catching anything, possibly that   as an immature bird, it was in...

I arrived at my first birding location in North Wales - Esclusham Mountain in Denbighshire. This trig point marks its highest point of 457 meters above sea level. It was windy and cold, but the view was absolutely stunning. Esclusham Mountain has a good population of Red Grouse  which breed on its slopes every year. As soon as I got out of the car I could hear the males calling, uttering their strange, bubbling 'Goback, goback, goback' call all the time.  As I walked along the footpath they would run out from the heather before flying up and away, dropping back down soon after.  This female Red Grouse ran across my path, closely followed by a male.  The females plumage is  more speckled than the males, to aid camouflage when they are sitting on the nest.  Like other species of grouse, Red Grouse have downy feathers on their legs, an adaption to help them live in cold environments. During periods of snow coverage they will use their feet to di...

I visit WWT Slimbridge fairly regularly and h ave been lucky enough to have some great sightings from the hides, including some rarities. My  favourite time of year to visit is during Autumn and Winter migration periods... AUTUMN In Autumn, lots of passage migrants pass through Slimbridge. This  Spotted Redshank  will have probably spent the breeding season in Scandinavia and after feeding and resting on the reserve for around a month will continue its journey down to central Europe or equatorial Africa to over winter. Like some other passage migrants found in the UK, Ruff breed in Scandinavia and are passing through Slimbridge on their way to their non-breeding grounds in sub-Saharan Africa. However, not all birds make their journey to Africa - some over winter in Britain; a few at Slimbridge.  Unless a bird is ringed or has a satellite tag, we'll never know for sure where it is from. For example, this female Wheatear could have bred in Alaska, Greenland, Sib...