RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2017 - Day 2

On Saturday I took part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch in Dan's garden. Seeing the RSPB added an extra day this year I decided to do another bird count today at my mum's house.

The weather wasn't great - cloudy, cold and showery. This didn't stop the birds coming though. This is what I saw...

Plenty of Starlings

How can you not like this bird with it's stunning colours?

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2017- Day 1

This weekend Dan and I took part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. We equipped ourselves with cups of tea, cameras and a notepad, and watched events from our vantage point in the conservatory.

We started our one hour birdwatch at 10.30am. This is what we saw...

One of the bird treats was this cute heart I found...unfortunately it was overlooked and lately ungratefully knocked on the floor uneaten!

Our vantage point for one hour, equipped with pen, paper and more importantly cups of tea ;)

One of our first visitors - Jackdaw

My 200 Bird Year Challenge!

Happy new year everyone :)

New year, new challenge and what better way to start than taking part in the Bird Watching Magazine challenge - #My200BirdYear. It encourages you to see 200 species in the course of 2018. This is a brief idea of what the challenge entails: 

"They can be anything from the birds you see on your back garden feeders, to seabirds passing offshore as you relax on the beach. There are no restrictions on where you do your birdwatching, and you won’t have to wait for your ticks to be approved by a committee – it’s all about enjoying new birds, and learning more about the wildlife all around us."

I am going to keep updating my page - you can find it above under My 200 Bird Year 2018.

#My200BirdYear http://www.birdwatching.co.uk/my200

The wildlife of Bluestone, Pembrokeshire - March 2016

From 21st March 2016 we stayed for a few days at Bluestone National Park Resort, Narberth, Pembrokeshire. It's a fantastic place to get away from it all and a great place to spot wildlife. It is surrounded by woodland and has it's own large lake. We were lucky enough to have a lakeside lodge and even from our window we were confronted by an abundance of wildlife.

Monday 21st March 2016
We arrived late afternoon, but already had a number of birds flying around our lodge...

Male blackbird singing a beautiful song in a nearby tree.

Moorhen foraging on the grass

We came prepared with some bird seed and mealworm and placed some on the balcony of our lodge. It wasn't long before we had visitors like this blue tit...

...and this male chaffinch.

Being nature lovers we were so excited to see birds so close, we couldn't wait to go to bed and wake up the next day to see what else would visit us :)

The sun setting over the lake (this was the view from our lodge) x

Tuesday 22nd March 2016
We woke up nice and early and looked out of our bedroom window to see what the weather was like. It was a bit overcast, but wasn't raining! There were already several birds on the picnic table outside...

Male sparrow waiting for his breakfast

We put some meal worm on the picnic table and it wasn't long before we had a crowd of them:
Blue tits, chaffinches & sparrows 

Then the big boys arrived, starlings...

...and jackdaws

But they seemed to feed nicely together, here they are looking at me
"Hey, we are running low here!"

We watched them for ages and a new face showed up...this adorable Great Tit

In the resort there are a few different walking routes, including a marked nature trail. So we managed to drag ourselves away from our feathered friends and went exploring.

The nature walk goes through deciduous woods, over streams and along boardwalks. There was lots of bird life, but the weather was a bit grey so we couldn't get many good photos. We continued following the numbered trail and saw two small birds flying in and out of trees. Upon closer inspection they were in fact a pair of Goldcrests. We couldn't believe it and they started doing a repetitive mating dance that lasted 10 minutes (you can see part of it in the video below).

A pair of Goldcrest perform a mating dance

Such beautiful birds and seeing them so close and doing such a wonderful display made our day. They eventually flew off and we continued our walk along the path which eventually reached one of Bluestone's eateries 'Camp Smokey'. We stopped for some refreshments and were greeted by a friendly robin. Dan was amused with the setting, this is where the zip wire activity takes place and he thought he was in Ewok territory 'Endor' (Star Wars fans will get this lol)

Camp Smokey

Friendly Robin

Endor?

We continued back on the trail, which lead us up higher into the woods - we reached a pathway with trees either side and remembered that last year in May they were full of bluebells, but we were here too soon this year. Once again we were greeted by an even friendlier robin and also a blackbird singing a lovely song.

The trees without bluebells March 2016

The trees with bluebells May 2015

Lovely, friendly robin

A singing blackbird

It was a lovely little nature trail and we made our way back to our lodge, as soon as we got there we already had a few birds waiting for us...

...including this Blue Tit...

...male Chaffinch...

...and this lovely Great Tit.

Wednesday 23rd March 2016
On our third day in Bluestone we had two new visitors outside our lodge: a pied wagtail and song thrush. We decided to walk a bit further out of the resort and into Canaston Woods, which is accessible from the resort.

Pied wagtail in a nearby tree

A Song Thrush looking for worms.

One of the ways out of the resort and into Canaston Woods.

It was a lovely walk around the woods and we saw a number of birds including a gorgeous buzzard sitting in a tree, we also saw numerous amounts of fungi and found these other interesting things...

Buzzard sitting in a tree

A big pellet full of bones near where the buzzard was hunting

A fox (?) skull

King Alfred's Cakes fungi

Some weird orange slime fungi

Lovely snowdrops in flower

The weather was grey and cold, so we finished our walk quite soon. We stopped to visit the castle on the way back - Castle Coch dates back to the 14th century and surrounded by trees from Canaston Woods. Again we could hear lots of bird life, but the bad lighting prevented any photos.

Castell Coch

Castell Coch

Thursday 24th March 2016
This day was a bit of a wash out, it rained almost all of the day. We did however see a few birds: a Cormorant on the lake, a Long Tailed Tit in the nearby bushes and a Carrion Crow in the grass.

Carrion Crow foraging in the grass

Cormorant on the lake

Long Tailed Tit in the bushes outside the lodge
(sorry about the photo, it was taken through a rather wet window)

A soaking bird on the balcony :(

In the evening the rain eventually eased off and we went for a bite to eat at the King's Tafarn, came second in the pub quiz then went looking for frogs, newts and toads. Armed with a torch, we couldn't believe the amount of toads next to the lodges - Bluestone is primarily a no car zone and people travel around in buggies - we lost count of how many times we stopped buggies and pointed out toads were crossing!

The toads were out in force and lots were mating, including a pair on our doorstep! We also saw lots of Palmate Newts, but no frogs.

Mating Common Toads on the path outside the lodge
(look at the size difference between male and female)

l

More mating Common Toads - Two's company, three's a crowd!

A posing Common Toad giving the 'don't mess with me' look

Palmate newt crossing the road

Another Palmate newt

...and here's another pair :)

We were so happy we saw so many toads and newts, they seem to be thriving in Bluestone and hopefully we saved a few potential road kills.


Friday 25th March 2016
So today was our last day staying at the resort, it was a completely different day than yesterday and the sun was finally shining. We had to check out quite early so we had one more walk around the lake before we made our way to Stackpole (this will be my next blog). This is what we saw on our last day...

The view from our window

One of the paths down to the lake

A Dunnock & Song Thrush seeking out juicy worms

The Toads were still at it! - Underwater, you can see the size difference!

A Mallard chilling out

A Herring Gull on top of our lodge bidding us goodbye.

Our stay at Bluestone was wonderful, we saw so much wildlife without even leaving the lodge. When we did leave the lodge we were treated to birds like buzzards and goldcrests. I would recommend Bluestone to anyone who loves nature and just wants to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life. We will definitely be back :)