Kristian's Wildlife Blog

Yesterday, me and Austin made the relatively short journey up to Kendal for the Common Rosefinch which had been hanging around a private garden for several days. After arriving and quickly identifying the garden, which could only be partially seen from the road, we waited for about half an hour with no sign. However, we then noticed a birder walking up a nearby lane and he informed us the bird was singing and showing well along a line of trees at the bottom of the path. We rushed down only to get the news it had just flown off! We waited for several more hours but eventually had to leave with no sign! Typically, the bird was reported first thing again this morning, so I decided to give it another go. After arriving and walking down the lane to a small group of birders, I met the news that it had just been seen again! I waited with the group for about 30 minutes before a lady spotted the Common Rosefinch well hidden in a small tree in the garden. The bird was distant and obscured from ...

With some nice weather this weekend, I decided to switch birds for butterflies and head up to the Silverdale area, hoping to see a few scarce species I haven't seen before. In the past couple of weeks I've seen both Green Hairstreak and Small Copper close to home, but Silverdale is the closest place for the target species I was after. I arrived at Warton Crag car park at around 11:00am with clear blue skies and surprisingly very few people! I immediately noticed several Common Blue and Small Heath flitting around the calcareous grassland below the quarry. Common Blue were one of the commonest species Moving through a small area of broadleaved woodland, I ended up on the craggy slopes with areas of calcareous grassland, stone outcrops and low scrub. I soon picked out my first target species - Dingy Skipper . These cool, yet slightly dull, butterflies were literally everywhere and I saw perhaps 50 by the end. Though slightly smaller than the Common Blues, they were constantly ...

While I've yet to see the Grey-Headed Lapwing, I settled for some great birds closer to home today. Me and Carl visited two sites in North Wales in the hopes of finding Wood Warbler, one of the more obvious UK species I'm yet to catch up with. With some great local information from John Roberts, we arrived at Bod Petrayl in north-east Wales at around 7:30am. Just as John had said, Wood Warbler was the first bird we heard after leaving the car! It took a little while to spot it in the poor light as it darted amongst the conifers adjacent to the car park, but when it came down to the lower branches the views were great! Poor light, but some great views of Wood Warbler ! We did a bit of exploring in the surrounding woodland - really interesting to see well-developed coniferous woodland with diverse ground flora, alive with birds compared to most desert-like plantations! It wasn't long before we picked up another Wood Warbler , also in conifers on the other side of a small lak...