Category: Members

Thanks to everyone who identified the exotic bird at Rushy Common. The consensus is that she was a female melanistic common pheasant, in particular Lindsay Fisher writes:

John C writes:

After spending another morning removing tree guards at Tar Lakes with the LWVP volunteers, I went to eat my lunch in the Rushy Common hide, as I usually do. Except for about a hundred wigeon and a solitary female goldeneye, the overwintering ducks had all left. I didn’t think that there would be anything interesting until I looked underneath the feeders.

John C writes:

Having missed, for obvious reasons, a birding trip in the winter of 20 – 21 we went down to Exmouth for the weekend of 19 – 21 February, almost exactly two years since our last visit. We hoped that we wouldn’t be too late for the winter migrants, particularly the avocets on the Exe estuary.

Johb C. writes:

Last Thursday, after another morning removing tree guards at Tar Lakes, I spent some of the afternoon in the Rushy Common hide to see whether the Marsh Harrier I had seen two weeks previously was still around.

John Cobb writes:

After spending last Thursday morning on all fours removing plastic tree guards (terrible things, very prickly job!) at Tar Lakes with the LWVP volunteers, I walked around Tar lakes and the fishing lakes towards Hardwick to see what birds were about.

David Roberts writes:

Reg Cox, Roy Jackson and myself took advantage of the reasonably forecast day and drove down to Slimbridge. On the approach road to the reserve we parked before the Canal Bridge at Shepherd’s Patch and walked over the bridge to the field beyond. On the right there is a barn and in this field, a little way in, was a Glossy Ibis, looking resplendent through the telescope.

John C . writes:

About a month ago after an afternoon birdwatching in the hides at Pit 60 in Standlake we found a group of interesting looking mushrooms on a dead tree.

David Roberts writes:

Had a super short break in Norfolk last week, drove up Tuesday 23 November and back Friday 26, staying at Caley Hall Hotel, Old Hunstanton, which is a favourite of mine as it is so close to all the bird watching sites on the North Coast; I have stopped there many times in the last fifteen years. Jean and I took our labrador, Millie, and met up at Welney Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre for lunch with Roy and Anne Jackson and their King Charles.

Sue Morton writes:

This will be my last blog about bush crickets for this year, as sadly they don’t survive the winter. 

Sue Morton writes:

Some rather handsome fungi appeared in my road a couple of weeks ago, growing in the verge at the base of a lime tree.