A friends trip to Ecuador

A friend of mine visited the Amazon rainforest in North East Ecuador at the end of last year, flying out on Xmas day; she has just finished uploading her photos to her website. Amanda is an Entomologist but interested in all wildlife and also a keen photographer.

Amanda is an adventurer and is frequently found in some very remote parts of the world and also having a few close shaves. On this trip it was with a Black Caiman, as they were canoeing along the Amazon Mandy was not aware that a Caiman was following, it closed on the canoe and made a lunge for Mandy who just saw it in time and yanked her arm in before its jaws closed on her!

Amanda has posted  just under 1000 photos from her visit to Ecuador and includes, Bugs, Butterflies, Dragonflies, Reptiles, Amphibians, Primates, Mammals, Birds, Fungi, you name it, its there!. Please take a look.

http://www.amanda-king-akimages.com/Portfolio/Amazon-Ecuador-20122013/27618922_JzQgrt#!i=2346313077&k=FMVprb9

A few sample photos from her site.

All photos © Amanda King “AKImages”

Amazon Kingfisher

Hoatzin

Golden-mantled Tamarin

Are We Losing Touch With the Countryside?

Worth posting as it bears out what a lot of us (birders) know!

One in four of us have never been to a river and one in 10 couldn't identify a badger, according to new research from the youth hostelling charity YHA (England and Wales).

Many of us look back fondly on youthful days spent climbing trees, exploring woodlands and looking for bugs in the great outdoors, however it seems many of us are losing touch with the countryside. With school holidays just around the corner, YHA is now urging families to get out and explore the UK countryside.

The *survey also found that nearly four in 10 UK adults have never climbed a tree, while nearly a quarter of respondents claim to have never even been to a lake and 16% have never been to a woodland!

As for flora and fauna, many of us have little idea what's out there. Eleven per cent of those polled believe they might bump into a wolf or a skunk on their ramble through the British countryside, while one in 10 wouldn't recognise a badger if they saw one. Additionally, 60% of UK adults are unaware our coastal waters are inhabited by sharks, whales and dolphins.

In total, 38% of respondents have either never been to the countryside or go only once a year or less - something that YHA wants to change.

YHA (England and Wales) Chief Executive Caroline White said: "This survey shows that a large part of the population are losing touch with the countryside - and missing out on so much. England and Wales has an abundance of things to explore and discover – better still; most of it is free or low cost, which, in the current economic climate, can only be good news.

“Giving people the chance to experience the great outdoors means more of us can find out all about what is out there and is also good for our health and happiness."

For more information about YHA, or to make a booking at any of its hostels, visit www.yha.org.uk.

Another example of how some (most) of us view the outdoors is:

No wonder litter is a problem, a friend of mine when walking his dog in Wantage recently came across a couple of 11 year olds with a carrier bag full of rubbish, they were just about to throw it in a ditch when he questioned them. They said their Mum had told them that their rubbish bin was full so go and take it and dump it in the ditch.

You can’t blame the kids but what the hell is a parent like that thinking!

What’s the answer?

“If you don’t engage with it you aint gonna fight for it!”

Drying out

Hazy sunshine, 7º, light to moderate NE, felt colder in the wind.

The ground is beginning to dry out but still a bit soggy in places.

My usual circular walk out to Lollingdon, the Lees etc. Lollingdon area was fairly quiet a hundred or so winter thrushes (c60 Fieldfare and c40 Redwing), two Grey Partridge, a Skylark in song and a Grey Heron, the rest of the area was quite devoid of any small passerines.
Near the Lees and the area leading up to Cholsey hill there were a few more birds, a ♂ Peregrine, several small flocks of Lapwing totalling around one hundred and fifty birds, several hundred Golden Plover in the air at a distance (probably over the Moreton floods), over two hundred Skylark (60+ in one flock), sixty plus Meadow Pipit, forty Linnet and several hundred winter thrushes.

Two Goldcrest seen close to the garden today and two Moorhen in the garden, one of the Moorhens took a liking to some of the apple I’ve been putting out for the Blackbirds, also a Blue Tit seen feeding on apple.

 Stock Dove dozing on the lawn

Grey Heron

Back in time – SODOFF

S.O.D.O.F.F. was conceived in 1991 in a pub in Wallingford by a few birders who wanted a bit more oomph from a meeting about birds and birding.

SODOFF stands for “South Oxfordshire Ornithological Fellowship of Friends” sounds like something from “Lord of the Rings” but believe me not all of us are Hobbits or Elves come to that!

We decided to hold regular meetings around 3 per year and issue a “journal” for each meeting, the meetings were held in Cholsey at the old pavilion until it got burned down (It wasn’t us) and the last meeting was held in the Old School Day Centre here at Marymead.

The core team initially for SODOFF was Ian Lewington, Peter Pool, Carl Salmon, Steve Young and myself. We also recruited many others with special skills or no skills whatsoever to help out and/or write various articles, these included Roger and Geoff Wyatt, Martin Hallam, George Reszeter and many other well-known Oxfordshire birders.

The “Teletree” was developed alongside; this was a telephone-based system for disseminating information on rare or scarce county birds. Initially around 10 members but this grew over the next few years to 30+ members and started to get rather complex for getting information to all concerned.

With the hibernation of SODOFF (we aint gone away yet!) the Teletree became OBIS (great for acronyms aren’t we) and continued on well in to the 2000’s but as communication media progressed this fell in to disuse but it done the job for those years it was active and a lot of county birders saw some good stuff because of it.

The OOS (Oxford Ornithological Society) perceived us as a potential threat and we even had a meeting with the OOS president, Dr Andy Gosler in a pub in Wallingford one evening and were successful in allaying any fears of a fledgling bird club usurping the authority of the oldest bird society in the world.

The first meeting was held on 12^th August 1992, the journal was entitled “Not the birds of Oxfordshire” and was mainly about the Teletree, at this point George Reszeter was onboard as a photographic consultant and Geoff Wyatt for catering and Roger Wyatt joined the board with a special responsibility for hall bookings. Andy Swash gave a talk that evening on the birds of Venezuela.

“Roger’s noises” (Roger Wyatt), “Martins ID quiz” (Martin Hallam) and “the mystery bird quiz” (Lew) were born and provided many an entertaining time trying to guess what bird made this or that noise especially after several cans of Caffreys.

I’m sure Bill Campbell would have frowned on us and then offered us a wee drop of whisky from his hip flask!

Over the next few years we had talks from the esteemed Mr Lev Levington himself, Jon King, Dave Cotteridge, Tim Loseby, Dave Massey, Andy Swash (again), Mike Amphlett and many other notable “ornithologists” “photographers” and “ecologists”.

The journal took on many guises with names like “SODBB”, “SOD the new year”, “Bastard Wing”,  “Turdus”, “SOD’ING World”, “Scilly Sod” to name but a few and featured many class articles such as “Chumming for Black Grouse”, (remember that Rog!),  “5 go North”, “Society wedding of the year”, and the now infamous “Skinny dipping on Scilly” photographed by George Reszeter and organised by Debbie Lewington, still have to get you back for that Debs, and the very prestigious “Serious back Page” with all the graphics dominated by our prestigious local bird artist Mr Levington.

The editorial meetings usually took place in the George and Dragon in Sutton Courtney where many useless ideas were formulated and included in the journals and at the meetings.

We even had T-shirts, car stickers etc printed, and even designed a pair of logo’d unisex undergarments. The T-shirts and car stickers were seen throughout the land from Scilly to Wick on various twitches, and the name of SODOFF became known internationally with several sodoff’ers flouting their T-shirts on international birding trips.

 

SODOFF eventually went in to hibernation in the late 90’s due to financial considerations waiting for the day it will re-awaken and take the birding world by storm once again.

Paul Chandler a.k.a. oxonbirder, I accept no responsibility for the accuracy of the above article as I cannot remember it all (too pissed then and too old now)!

 

 

 

 

A Fishy tale

Another drab cold day, 4º, boring weather.

Decided to take another walk to Wallingford along the Bunk line, fairly uneventful other than roughly sixty Lapwing in a newly ploughed field and a winter thrush flock of two hundred and fifty birds near Winterbrook around equal numbers of Redwing and Fieldfare and a flock of just over one hundred Starling, also a Skylark in song today!

On crossing a bridge over a small stream in Wallingford I noticed rather a lot of fish under the bridge! Now the stream only goes in a few hundred yards coming in from the river as the other end has dried up and was built over a fair time ago. Now the water at this point was only around thirty centimetres deep if that, and there was no flow but under the small bridge there was an estimated two thousand small fish all concentrated in a small area. There was a steady movement of fish backwards and forwards from the river to the bridge and the mass of fish seemed to be quite relaxed if that’s the right word to use for their behaviour.

I made a quick phone call to Bob Wyatt who arrived shortly afterwards to view the scene and identify the fish present. Most of the fish (99%) were Roach but there was also several Perch, Bream, Chub and Dace with them, most of the fish were of a small size (less than 100 grams) with a few a bit heavier (200+ grams) but the number of them was impressive. Certainly a phenomenon I had not seen before along with quite a few others who turned up to see it. Roger Wyatt also arrived and took some photos along with me but the conditions were not good as it was either too dark or there was a reflection from the water’s surface. My son Leon and a friend of his, Darren (both fisherman) arrived and also found it a very interesting sight.

Two possibilities of why, one was predator evasion but there seemed to be no panic and they appeared relaxed in their coming and going, or they moved to clear water as the Thames is still in flood and very murky and also they do not spawn until April which would account for similar behaviour?

There was also a Kingfisher by the mouth of the stream, presumably being tempted by the quantity of fish present (but most were too big for a Kingfisher) and two Grey Wagtail put in a brief appearance.

Thanks to Bob and Roger Wyatt for their input and Rog for some of the photos.

Now for some birds, some of the Starling flock

Cholsey marsh Barn owl

A cracking photo of the Cholsey marsh Barn Owl by Roger Wyatt.

©

Cold and Bleak

Overcast, 2º, light NNE, felt colder!

A cold and bleak evening at Cholsey marsh and a rather cold and dull day all round.

Dropped in to Little Wittenham/Day’s Lock this afternoon, the Shelduck still present on the far side of the scrape along with one hundred plus Lapwing, one hundred plus Starling, twenty odd Teal and several Gulls and Corvids and a large number of Wigeon (1000+) beyond near the gravel pit.

The pair of Goosander still on the river downstream of the bridge and just over sixty Mute Swan on a field between Little and Long Wittenham.

Back to Cholsey marsh later and twenty eight Corn Bunting roosting there this evening and a handful of Reed Bunting.

One hundred and sixty Redwing and twenty Fieldfare flew from Little Stoke area and settled in the trees on and around the marsh, presumably roosting there also. A Stock Dove singing (if you can call it that) on the Little Stoke side of the river.

A “redhead” Goosander flew low upriver and a Great Crested Grebe seen on the river and several Teal still present on the flooded part of the marsh. Green and Great-spotted Woodpecker both present and three to four Water Rail.

Just over a hundred Geese loafing in a field adjacent to the marsh, mainly Canada Geese but also a few “Greylag” types and our very own Snow Goose look-alike! Also twenty five Lapwing present.

The garden still very busy with eight Long-tailed Tit, two Stock Dove, two Mallard, two Blackcap, Great-spotted Woodpecker and two Song Thrush to name but a few visiting today.

Shelduck in the distance with a few Teal & Lapwing in front and Starlings behind.

"redhead" Goosander

Blackbird enjoying some apple

Great-spot again today.

Roll on spring

A busy garden again today and still freezing, my daughter bought over two "victoria" plum tree saplings for planting in the garden some time this week.

♂ Great-spotted Woodpecker

Brrrr

A cold day and no birding, 0º, and trying to snow most of the day but not quite making it!

Hundred plus Golden Plover on Cholsey Hill and a few Lapwing seen over the now dwindling Moreton floods.

A Treecreeper in the garden this morning.

Apparently the longest period of dry weather currently since July 2012! (Cheers Tom).

Blackcap feeding on sultanas.

Woodcock

Eastender flushed a Woodcock from his garden meadow yesterday 21^st Feb, second record for his garden.

More garden stuff.

Overcast, 1º, light NE.

Well it never got above freezing today, I took a perfectly formed circle of ice off the birdbath and placed it against it and it has kept its shape all day.

Did not venture far today as I’ve had some computer work to catch up on, did a brisk walk around the village for some exercise and noted fourteen Red Kite over Crescent Way, I guess someone was feeding them.

The garden was busy today with a few species feeding and more passing over, am fortunate to overlook the garden whilst being busy on my laptop.

So today the garden had: a Moorhen, a Pheasant, two Stock Dove, twenty three Wood Pigeon, three Collared Dove, a Great-spotted Woodpecker, two Song Thrush, nine Blackbird, three Blue Tit, four Great Tit, two Long-tailed Tit, fifteen Chaffinch, ten Goldfinch, eight Greenfinch, two Mallard, two Carrion Crow, two Robin, two Dunnock, two Blackcap and a Wren.

Overhead and in the meadow were: Lesser Black-back Gull, Black-headed Gull, Red Kite, Buzzard, Rook, Jackdaw, Magpie, Green Woodpecker, Starling, House Sparrow, Mistle Thrush, Redwing and Fieldfare.

And a thank you to the dog walker who walked around the meadow this afternoon and collected all the litter, Thanks.

Cold again!

Sunny, 1º, light NE, felt colder!

More Reed Bunting than Corn Bunting at the roost this evening so it looks as though the CB roost is breaking up for the spring. Twenty plus Reed and fourteen Corn Bunting, however this may change if the weather stays cold for a time!.

The Barn Owl put in an appearance and there are still good numbers of Teal and Common Snipe on the marsh. A few Fieldfare and Redwing around, a Song Thrush singing at dusk and the usual squealing from the Water Rails, a Little Grebe also heard and a Grey Heron over. Green Woodpecker, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Kestrel, Buzzard and Red Kite also present.

A pair of Mallard back visiting the garden, usually early morning and evening, a Pheasant, two Stock Dove, two ♂ Blackcap, a ♀ Great-spotted Woodpecker still visiting, also a Moorhen in the garden today with all the usual visitors and a Green Woodpecker and two Coal Tit seen and heard in the meadow.

Buzzard at sunset

Dunnock

Barn Owl, always distant!

Moorhen in the garden, took a liking to apple.

The moon is very photogenic at the moment!

Little Wittenham

Sunny, 8º, little wind.

The countryside slowly drying out you would think, Wittenham Wood was very soggy along the tracks. The Thames was within the banks but fast running at Day’s Lock and the scrape area was over 50% water.

Very little seen, the scrape held a hundred plus Black-headed Gull and a few Common Gull.

There was a large Tit flock in the area around the old Lock Keepers house and one possibly two Marsh Tit with the flock, a ♂ Sparrowhawk flew through and there were alarm calls all over maybe around forty birds in the flock, Great, Blue and Long-tailed Tit.
A few Siskin and Goldfinch flyovers and two Goosander (♂ & ♀) on the river.

Wittenham Wood was very quiet just the occasional Great-spotted Woodpecker drumming but very little else.

 

Walk to Wallingford

Sunny, 8º, light SE.

A walk in to Wallingford today along the Bunk Line and through Winterbrook, a pleasant day but still muddy and wet everywhere.

The highlight of the day was a Jack Snipe flushed from a flooded field next to Green lane, typical of that species low direct and silent flight when flushed, flew around one hundred metres up the field and disappeared near the hedgerow adjacent to the railway, also five Lapwing in the same field.

A flock of roughly two hundred Fieldfare and a couple of Redwing at Winterbrook and one hundred plus Pied Wagtail at Cholsey SF, also two Song Thrush there and ten Black-headed Gull.

The Thames still high and the banks are still not walkable in most places and a partially sunken boat near the mouth of Bradford Brook. A lot of Black-headed Gull feeding on bread by Wallingford Bridge.

As I was typing this out late afternoon I noticed a Siskin feeding on one of the nut feeders in the garden, could not get a photo as the sun was shining directly in to my windows at that time of day. The Pheasant still turning up for a late afternoon feed.

Casualty of the floods?

The Thames path at Wallingford leading to Benson

 

Black-headed Gulls at Wallingford Bridge

Lapwings

Garden stuff

Sunny and milder, max of 9º.

Not been out for the last few days so just a few odds and sods in the garden still, a single ♂ Blackcap still visiting along with a couple of Song Thrush and a ♀ Great-spotted Woodpecker and the two Stock Dove, also an increase in Greenfinch numbers with up to eight present and around a dozen Goldfinch.

A Green Woodpecker and a Mistle Thrush in the meadow, with the milder and brighter weather a few species are singing regularly, Robin, Song Thrush and Chaffinch all frequently now and also a few snippets of Blackcap song.

A few Snowdrops out in the garden and Daffodils coming in to bud.