25 Dec 25 - A Nice Christmas Present

During Christmas morning, I looked out of the living room window and saw there was a Sparrowhawk about four metres from the window looking at me. It was sitting on a low Pittosporum bush, which has been popular with the occasional visiting Blackcap feeding on the bush's red berries. Additionally, my local House Sparrows and Dunnocks can often be seen moving within the bush.

Sparrowhawk: I'm quite impressed with this photo considering it was taken through a double-glazed window

The Sparrowhawk spent a few minutes looking around and when it didn't see any targets, it finally flew out down my neighbour's drive.

Sparrowhawk

This Blackcap might have been what the Sparrowhawk was after. One appeared around mid-Dec and I've seen the odd visitor since then. On the day this photo was taken, I had my highest garden total with a male Blackcap and three Browncaps in the Pittosporum.

Blackcap: It's difficult to be sure if this is a female or a first winter male (12 Jan 26)

30 Apr 18 - A Day Trip To Cape Verde (Part 2)

We had had a good start to the day trip to Praia & Santiago Island where we had seen the endemic species Cape Verde Buzzard, Alexander's Swift & Cape Verde Sparrow. Additionally, we had seen the endemic Bourne's Purple Heron & Alexander's Kestrel which are regarded as subspecies of Purple Heron & Kestrel respectively, but have been split in the past. However, we still needed to see the endemic Cape Verde Warbler. This is another Acrocephalus Warbler that seems to have found a niche on a small island group & evolved into a distinct species. The Pacific has quite a few Acrocephalus Warblers including Tahiti Reed Warbler, Pitcairn Reed Warbler & Henderson Island Reed Warbler.

Cape Verde Warbler: There were several in the Acacia scrub. Despite the Acacia looking to be a fairly open tree, they were remarkable good at skulking in it

Cape Verde Warbler: They sit still & spend a lot of time looking for insects. This species is restricted to Santiago Island, but used to occur on Sao Nicolau & Brava Islands

Cape Verde Warbler: It is surprisingly short-winged

Chestnut-bellied Kingfisher: This species is also known as Grey-headed Kingfisher & is found on Cape Verde, in most of Sub Saharan Africa & along the Red Sea coast of the Southern Arabian Peninsula

Chestnut-bellied Kingfisher: This is the acteon subspecies which only occurs on the Cape Verde islands & is a nice Western Palearctic Tick

Chestnut-bellied Kingfisher: This widespread species helped to make Cape Verde feel more African than the Canary Islands & Madeira which have a more European feel to their Birds

Spectacled Warbler: This is the orbitalis subspecies which occurs on Cape Verde, the Canary Islands & Madeira. The nominate conspicillata subspecies occurs in the Iberian Peninsula, Italy & North Africa

Spectacled Warbler: I only saw a couple during the day

Spectacled Warbler

Blackcap: This is the gularis subspecies of Blackcap which is restricted to Cape Verde & the Azores

Blackcap: It was good to get these photos as I only saw a couple of Blackcaps during the day

There was also an African Monarch by the dam. The last ones we had seen were on St Helena.

African Monarch

Back on the dam wall, a few more Black-winged Stilts had joined the Little Egret flock. Overall, there were ten Black-winged Stilts on the reservoir bottom, but most were further back.

Little Egrets & Black-winged Stilts

Black-winged Stilt: This is regarded as a monotypic species with just one subspecies throughout its range

It was time to head off to look for some Larks & Cream-coloured Courser. As we were driving away from the reservoir, we saw this group of Helmeted Guineafowls feeding quietly near the road. A quick stop allowed a few photos from the minibus. This widespread Sub-Saharan African species are regarded as a self-sustaining population on the Cape Verde, so it was Cat C addition to my Western Palearctic List.

Helmeted Guineafowl

Helmeted Guineafowl

4 Nov 13 - Blast From The Past - Sabine's Gull

A couple of weeks after getting the camera, a 1st Winter Sabine's Gull turned up at Cogden Beach in West Dorset. I popped down with Peter Moore & had a great time getting used to the camera in great light. I never had time to sort through the 350 or so photos I took, other than to quickly publish a couple of photos on the blog in All The Birders Love A Pretty Gull. I've finally had chance to sort though the rest of the photos & decided that some more photos of one of the best Gulls in the world are needed. Enjoy.

Sabine's Gull

Sabine's Gull

 Sabine's Gull

Sabine's Gull

Sabine's Gull

Sabine's Gull: Every few minutes it dropped into the field & was pulling up worms & eating them. Bit surprising they are so rare in fields, given the amount of potential food available to them

Eventually, we decided to leave and dropped into Abbotsbury on the way back as a Yellow-browed Warbler had been found that morning.

Yellow-browed Warbler: These days this is a monotypic species, with the other 2 subspecies that used to be included, split off as Hume's Yellow-browed Warbler

Blackcap: Female

Peter Moore: It's thanks to Peter that I ended up buying the Canon 7D & 400mm f5.6 lens which has been a great set up. Part of the reason for getting it is the cracking results that Peter has been coming up with in recent years with the same camera & lens. One of the best photos from Peter are his Pacific Swift photos (Trimley Marshes, Suffolk in 2013), which I reckon are easily the best photos I've seen of this bird