After just over 40 years I finally met up with my old school mate Steve (Eba) Bool. We were both heavily into our birds back then as we still are today. Steve is a great digiscoper and some of his video's and pictures that he's taken through his scope can be seen at our local Facebook site GWENT BIRDERS. We've been out birding together a couple of times since we met up and this is a post of a mornings birding at his local wood which leads through farmland and to the top of a mountain side.
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| my old school buddy Eba and myself. We haven't changed a bit. |
We first went through his local wood where there was a cacophony of bird song, this wood is where last spring Steve watched a pair of Sparrowhawks from egg laying to the chicks fledging which was in his words "a brilliant experience".Here's a couple of the birds in his wood I managed to photograph.
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| song thrush |
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| black cap (male) |
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| willow warbler |
We also had a rare treat when we must have walked into the territory of a Firecrest. What a beautiful little bird, it came in pretty close and I managed to get just a record shot, we decided to move away to leave the bird alone as it must have been nesting there somewhere and they are I think a schedule 1 species so shouldn't be disturbed.
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| firecrest showing it's distinctive white eye stripe |
We walked through a farm and on top of his local mountainside where there were a few heathland birds on show, here's a couple of images from there.
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| stonechat |
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| meadow pipit |
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| male linnet |
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| female house sparrow |
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| buzzard |
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| skylark |
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| another mipit |
After a few hours out we made our way back down to Steve's house where we had tea and biscuits and a good old catch up. He's a great character and an excellent birder and I hope with work and our busy lives we'll still find time to have a few more days out birding.
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