Microbirdology

Elmley has settled down with the departure of the over-wintering birds. The Lapwing chicks look very vulnerable on the ground and I was a bit disappointed to see just how many seem to have disappeared on a second visit, 4 days later. Sadly, the predatory gulls and harriers seemed to be having a serious impact on the survival rate of young birds.    There were plenty of Linnets flying close to the track, plus a few Wheatears. The Marsh Frogs were very noise. The Shovelers were often closer to the track than usual. The Well Marsh was busy and noisy, mostly with BH gulls. They would act against each other until an external threat came along, when they would act together. I was amazed to see an Oystercatcher chase off a Marsh Harrier. The picture was taken through the closed window of the hide but captures the bravery of the moment. Plenty of Yellow Wagtails around as well.        

Report of a Penduline tit around the top end of the Oare reserve saw an influx of birders, the sensible ones wearing Wellingtons.   I didn’t see the bird, but Whitethroats and Linnets were plentiful.     In early May, a quick morning visit, to get another Whitethroat picture, resulted in capturing a brief flyby from a Cuckoo and a Swallow looking very iridescent in the morning sunshine.   On the same trip, a pair of Marsh Harriers were having a dispute above the Suice pond.      

The Canon R7 has two UHS-II slots and relatively limited buffering capacity.   To delay hitting the buffer limits, the ‘no-expense spared’ solution would be to buy expensive well reviewed UHS-II SD cards such as the Lexar Professional 2000x (£154 for 128Gb), ProGrade Digital SDXC UHS-II V90 300R (£149 for 128Gb) or the Sony SF-G series TOUGH (£189 for 128Gb).   Or perhaps the even more expensive 256Gb versions. However, some of us can’t afford these high-end solutions – hence the rest of this post. The similarly specified but more modestly priced Kingston Canvas React Plus SD card has also been well reviewed on several camera sites, so I purchased this when the price dropped, briefly, on Amazon UK to £83 for the 128Gb card.   I also managed to pick up two Kingston Canvas React Plus 64Gb micro-SD cards for the ridiculously low price of £12 each from another UK site. These don’t seem to be available anymore – I think they may have realized their pricing error! Using C...

I stayed in Seaton for several days in the middle of the month and did some minor-league twitching to Portland for the Hoopoe, Lodmoor for the Garganey and Iford for the Night Heron. I also went on a standard Poole Harbour tourist boat trip, just in case an Osprey or WTE made an appearance and flew near the boat. Seaton 3 rd Birdwatching Tram Special.   Bird-wise nothing unusual was seen, nor was anything particularly close to the tram, from a photography perspective. There was a distant Whimbrel on BHM, the first that the guide, Gavin, had seen this year.   The best spot from the tram was three Roe deer on Colyford common.   There were the usual Shelduck and Canada geese on the wetlands and the Black-tailed Godwits were in full summer regalia.     Some of the Little egrets had a purple skin colouration between the beak and the eye, this is apparently a breeding season phenomenon. Portland I had two failed attempts to find the Hoopoe in the hors...