CROSSBILLS AT FARNHAM HEATH

A trip to RSPB Farnham Heath was the next adventure on our travels. My good birding mate Steve Bool had already been there a couple of weeks previous and said how good it was for seeing Crossbills so when he had a job delivering there a few days ago I went along with him to hopefully see and photograph this beautiful little finch.

Farnham Heath is in Surrey and is not very well sign posted so how Steve found it god only knows. It's a massive area of fir trees and heathland and is used extensively by dog walkers which doesn't go down well with the Wardens and Volunteers but still it's a cracking site and we were looking forward to spending a few hours there.

When Steve went there  previously he found a small pond where birds come down to bath and drink so we set up there and waited. Crossbills are predominantly seed eaters so have to drink regularly they eat the seeds from the cones in fir trees preferring spruce. They extract the seeds by using their specially adapted beaks to pry open the cones to get at the seeds inside. We were lucky as it wasn't to long before some came in to drink, here's a couple of pictures of the birds waiting in the surrounding trees and coming into the waters edge.

male crossbill

female

female

and another male

 As you can see from the photos above the male's are a bright red and the females more of a greyish green.

Steve took some lovely footage of the Crossbills through his Leica scope and IPhone combo here's a couple of clips of the male and female.

After their short stay at the pond the Crossbills all flew off so Steve and myself had a wander to see if we could find the Dartford Warblers which also frequented the Heath.

It wasn't long before we heard the distinctive buzzing churr of the Dartford as one hopped up on a small pine tree giving us a chance of getting some pics and a bit of video.

dartford warbler

Another showed quite well on top of a small gorse bush but they kept their distance not allowing us to get to close.

another Dartie

When we were looking for the Darties we flushed a Roe Deer which was a bit of an added bonus.

roe deer

As we're now in November the days are getting a lot shorter so with not much light left we went for one last look at the Crossbills. They did come in again giving us cracking views a great way to finish off our visit.

What a stunning bird - We left Farnham Heath with some great memories and met some lovely people and will hopefully if Steve gets another job in the area go back there again.

On the way back we stopped off at Aust which is the Bristol side of the Seven Bridge or as it's called now the Prince of Wales Bridge. A Penduline Tit has been there for a few days, Steve had been lucky enough to see it on the Saturday but I had family commitments and was unable to go. Although the light was fading we were hoping to get a glimpse of this quite rare and lovely little bird.

Here's Steve's footage of the Penduline Tit he took a few days earlier.

No luck I'm sorry to say but we did have some nice views of a Kestrel and the sunset over the bridge was pretty spectacular.

female kestrel

gorgeous sunset

We had a great day out and even though I didn't get to see the Penduline Tit those Crossbills and Dartford Warblers more than made up for it.

two happy birders

Big thanks once again to Steve for doing the driving and taking us to these wonderful places another excellent day out, so until the next one cheers.

A DIVER AT CARDIFF BARRAGE

 A Red Throated Diver had turned up at the Cardiff Bay Barrage over the last few days so when my best birding buddy Steve Bool asked me if I wanted to go down to see it I absolutely jumped at the chance.

Red Throated Divers breed up in Scotland on inland lakes but in the Winter although scarce can turn up on UK coasts as this one's done in Cardiff.

When we got there we spotted it nearly straight away swimming with a Great Crested Grebe but the sun was shinning straight into our faces so views were pretty poor. We decided to move onto one of the pier like structures so the sun wouldn't be so obstructive but the time I'd got into position it had gone. The tide was going out so it must have swam out to deeper water, divers can swim underwater for two hundred yards or more so it might be the reason why we didn't see it leave. 

We decided to have some refreshments and wait for the tide to come in a bit before trying to relocate it. After an hour or so we went back to the same place it had disappeared from, the tide had started to come back in and the mudflats that were left after the tide went out were now underwater again. After about another half hour of scanning the sea with our binoculars it finally turned up. It was a good way out to begin with but came closer and closer until at last I was able to get some decent images.

red throated diver

The bird is obviously now in it's Winter plumage, some were saying it might even be a juvenile but it's difficult to tell.

what a cracking bird

One annoying thing was it was constantly diving so Steve couldn't get any video footage but just to see it is sometimes enough what a beauty.

Whilst trying to photograph the Diver a Seal turned up and caught a huge Salmon. Lucky enough it wasn't to far out and I was able to grab a few shots as it devoured this massive fish.

seal with it's catch

 
After seeing that unexpected treat we concentrated back on the Diver what a privilege to see this handsome bird.

red throated diver

 After a while the bird once again decided to do it's disappearing act and as our car parking time was nearly up and the rain started to come down we decided to call it a day. What a morning it was though Red Throated Diver and a Seal with a Salmon it don't get much better than that. Big thanks as always to Steve for doing the driving what a diamond he is and what a great morning it was at Cardiff Barrage brilliant.