Over the last few
days there have been reported sightings of three species of birds in my local area that were all potential
lifers for me. So today I decided to
make the effort and brave the elements to see what I could find.
I arrived at Startop's End Reservoir on the Buckinghamshire/Hertfordshire border
to find a small group of birders, braving a bitterly cold South Westerly wind,
watching a stunning first winter male
Snow Bunting.
Next it was a short drive to Wilstone reservoir in
Hertfordshire, where the wind seemed to be getting even colder, and a quick
word with another birder who was just
leaving and I was directed to my second lifer of the day a juvenile
Dark-Bellied Brent Goose grazing in an adjacent field with some Greylag Geese.
The third lifer of the day I have seen before in captivity
but never in the wild consisted of a
family group of four Bewick's Swans who were unfortunately too distant for a decent photograph!
So, that's three firsts for the day... and now the next first
is... the very first time that I have posted a video on my blog! Yes - after much deliberation I've purchased
a video camera and have been trying to get to grips with it for the last few
weeks!!
So here are my two very shaky (well it was windy!!) first videos...hopefully
the quality will improve for future posts!!
So I had a very
successful, if very cold, day of firsts,
and the final first is that for the first time I've managed to post photographs
(and videos!) on the same day as I took them...that's a lot of firsts for one
day...phew!!
