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Beddington Gulls

Flicked through the gulls this afternoon with Dodge and Kojak. An adult Med (pic 1) and also a 3rd winter type Yellow-legged Gull.

New Logo

Talks are still underway regarding setting up a steering group for the development of the Beddington Farmlands Nature Reserve. Been experimenting with some logo designs and came up with this one by Szabolcs Kókay ( http://www.kokay.hu/ ) - one of my favourite bird artists.

His illustrations are particularly rich in colour and character http://kokay.hu/illus2.htm

Aythya influx at Beddington

75 Tufted Ducks and 30 Pochard on the lake today which is a marked influx especially since the freeze up. Teals were very vocal and displaying, Shovelers were shovelling in tight groups (although numbers were higher during the freeze up) and there were 10 Gadwall, 3 Wigeon and 4 Shelduck. A Redshank on the southern lake, Lapwings are back up to 30+ and a tit flock on the lake edge included a Goldcrest.

BBC Natural World Recce to Beddington

Spent yesterday morning on a recce with Marcus and Gaby from Passion Pictures who is planning on filming the gulls and other wildlife at Beddington for a BBC Natural World on London wildlife.

Hopefully more on this as it unfolds.

AZORES SPRING PELAGIC 2011

Black-capped Petrel, Graciosa, (26/05/07) by Killian Mullarney

We will be arranging a pelagic off the Azores for next spring, targeting speciality seabirds including the endemic Monteiro's Storm Petrel (at sea) and also Barolo Shearwater, Bulwers Petrel and Wilson's Petrel. We will also be exploring for Trindade and Black-capped Petrels. These species occur regularly in the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras and Trindade Petrel has been predicted to migrate into Azorean waters (see Flood, B & Danzenbaker, M 2009. Birding World 22:4) . This prediction is supported by a series of casual observations. Further exploration off the Azores, targeting these species at the prime time of year with modern chumming techniques is aimed at testing this prediction. This has not been attempted before.
The backdrop will be good numbers of cetaceans and other marine life.
Here's a few photos from previous 'recces'.

Top to Bottom: Barolo Shearwater, Monteiro's Storm Petrel, Great Shearwater, Wilson's Petrel, 'Fea's' Petrel, Loggerhead Turtle, Sperm Whale, Sowerby's Beaked Whale , Blue Shark and Cory's Shearwater.

For further details and to register an interest in joining this mini-expedition please send me an email (littleoakgroup@btinternet.com)

TOP BLOG POST

This was an interesting gull that Mark disovered- Johnny thought he could have seen the same bird at Beddington:
http://northernrustic.blogspot.com/2011/01/id-hell-episode-one-snr-gull-december.html


Even better check out these tracks by Mark - Stepping out in front of cars!! beautiful :

http://www.morningbride.co.uk/