Another Wryneck
Its hard to believe but you wait 70 years to see your first Wryneck and in the space of a month two turn up in Lancashire! The second one was found on the moors to the east of Burnley and as I was impressed with the first one I decided to chance my luck with the second. Luck is the appropriate word for on my first visit I only had distant views of the Wryneck. So I trekked onto the moor a second time and at first had no better fortune. I was on the point of leaving and was actually walking along the path that surrounds the reservoir when, there it was, on the bank less than ten feet away! What followed next was a magical ten minutes filming and admiring the amazing plumage of this very rare bird. At times its cryptic plumage blended in with the ground cover and made it very hard to see.
Enjoy the gallery photos of what will probably be the Pennines best bird this winter. And, yes, if another one turns up I will definitely go to have a look!! click here
During all the hot, sunny and calm weather of couple of weeks ago I visited some lakes in Yorkshire to film Herons with mirror reflections. I was a not disappointed and this weeks blog shows one with a small Pike in its bill. Whilst by the waterside I was also able to film some Yellow Wagtails that were migrating south. There were at least a dozen of them feeding amongst cattle and it was a real bonus as I have not seen Yellow Wagtails on my local patch for at least ten years. 
This weeks blog photo is of a male Long Eared Owl still actively hunting to provide food for his now fully fledged young. At some point in time he has to moult all his flight feathers and if you look carefully at his fifth primary feathers, on both wings, they are only partly grown. It must be very difficult for him to go through a progressive moult and at the same time to be still providing food for his offspring. It can only be a matter of days now before the young Owls will be on their own and our male can have a more relaxing time – until next year that is ! 
When Ospreys arrived in Britain this year it was late March and lockdown had just begun. It meant that they could settle down to breed in our countryside without disturbance from human beings. The result has been a record number of 300 pairs breeding this year and most have been successful. Ironically one of the unsuccessful ones was at Loch Garten where the first pair bred in 1954 and where no Ospreys returned to this year.
I have never considered myself a twitcher but during the last week I have spent fifteen hours on the Pennine moors looking for an illusive bird called a Wryneck. Its a bird that I have never seen before and breeds in the forests of Scandinavia and sometimes in the highlands of Scotland. Its cryptic plumage and habits of feeding on the ground make it very hard to find especially as it is not much bigger than a Skylark. I managed to find it twice so enjoy this weeks gallery as I am unlikely to ever see one again and yes I still do not consider myself to be a twitcher!! 
The fabulous weather that we had during the beginning of lockdown came just as the first Sand Martins were arriving locally. A high sandy bank was dug on my local stream and was an instant attraction and by the end of the first period of lockdown fifty pairs had reared young in this bank. This weeks blog and gallery photos were taken during this period which produced an exceptional number of fledged young.