Today was a gorgeous gorgeous day! I awoke at 5.30am and got myself down to The Scrubs at 6am to be greeted by around 1,000 Rose-ringed Parakeets that were leaving their roadside roost in flocks of 100 plus birds at a time. It’s a wonder that the noise doesn’t disturb the locals. Around 10 minutes […]
A female Mallard, South Norwood Country Park, south London or is it Croydon? Over the last couple of days I was gently eased into the world of ‘Twitter’. Initially, I was told about it by the woman who guided my birth into the blogging ether, Clare Evans (check her blog, she’s one of my followers). […]
My first ever The One Show Shoot: Parakeets – Valeria Fabbri-Kennedy Yesterday, a tripped down to cloudy Bristol in the west country to have a few meetings at the BBC Natural History Unit along with my lovely agent Jo. The idea was to raise my work potential at The One Show and Springwatch. I will […]
Graham Appleton with The Urban Birder at the BTO HQ in Thetford After being picked up at East Acton Station by the ever lovely Fiona from Birdguides, we drove to The British Trust for Ornithology’s HQ in Thetford, Norfolk in order for me to award the talented Dean Eades with the Birdguides 2008 Photograph of […]
I discovered 3 Skylarks in the pipit breeding area on The Scrubs last Friday. In itself it was nothing too unusual, especially given that a lot of things are on the move at the moment. What struck me though was the fact that 2 of the birds were showing definite ‘prospecting’ behaviour. They were actively […]
Black-legged Kittiwake – Dawn Balmer With my brush with the law out of the way, life returned to its normal law abiding way. Yesterday afternoon, I motored leisurely over to the Birdguides offices in Acton, west London to meet with Fiona Barclay and Max Whitby. We were convening to discuss a schedule for some films […]
Think of ducks…. Last night I visited an good friend of mine who lives in a council estate around the corner from me. It was her 65th birthday and my best friend and I paid her a visit laden with some cakes and presents. We left her place at 9.30pm and as we headed down […]
Black-headed Gull My alarm went off at 5.50am this morning. I peered through the blinds to be greeted by a dark and grimy looking day. Despite all my hopeful thinking last night you know, about finding a totally unusual Larid pacing around the football pitches at The Scrubs, I thought ‘what the hell’ and jumped […]
Tonight, I’m sitting on my bed listening to the Rolling Stones as the rain, teaming from the heavens, lashes on my bedroom window. It’s been raining all night, seemingly a natural continuation of today’s dismally grey and depressing day. I spent some of my day compiling and writing the February London UK Bird report for […]
A Peregrine at the Tate Modern At last I’m getting into some semblance of a routine. I’m retraining my body to get up in the morning and go birding. I really have to force myself during the winter months because The Scrubs often has little to show for itself during the cold dark months of […]
God bless its electrical soul The postman’s supposed to ring twice, right? Well, round where I live they don’t even bother ringing. It’s often a wonder that you get any letters at all. After coming back from an early morning Scrubs visit I waited in like a plum for the postman to deliver my new phone. […]
Yesterday’s mystery photo raised a lot of comment not only on this blog but also on email and text. As I said earlier, the vast majority of people fancied it as a Chiffchaff, despite the dark face, lack of supercilium and leggy appearance. Such is the excitement of birding. My crackberry finally collapsed. A month […]
Is this a Chiffchaff? I woke up to another grey day in London. Before heading out of the door to do a voiceover for Birdguides, I checked my emails and came across one sent by a good birding mate of mine containing the above displayed picture. It was taken by a non-birder on holiday in […]
A handsome Redwing A failed internet connection, a late night and downright laziness all contributed to my lack of entries over the past few days. Of course, I had offers from some very kindly folk to use their offices (including my good mate Fiona Barclay – she of Birdguides fame). I decided to suffer and […]
6-2 was the final score this morning and I was voted man of the match by a few of my fellow team mates. I was well happy! The skies were blue (quite a change from the recent gloom) and whilst standing in between the sticks my birding urges twinged when I noticed several parties of Carrion […]
The view above Croydon The next city to fall under my urban birding gaze will be…………Croydon. For those not familiar with this major commercial settlement in south London, it is the birthplace of non other than Kate Moss and a few other notable Croydonians – who’s names currently escape me. Interestingly, I never knew that Croydon […]
The morning I missed at The Scrubs A quiet day today. I tried to get up early to hit The Scrubs, but instead I hit the pillow again with a definite thud! Today was a day of paperwork and emails, but I wont bore you. In the evening, I attended the Friends of The Scrubs […]
I had a call from the producer of the Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 out of the blue today. He asked if I would like to come into the studio to talk about the effect that domestic cats are having on Britain’s wildlife on Jeremy’s show. I agreed to it, but stressed that […]
An early morning trip to The Scrubs resulted in my first Bullfinch record for several months. A fine male flew along the embankment and dipped into Chats Paddock. There used to be two pairs of this scarce finch breeding on my patch, but some careless habitat ‘management’ during June one year put paid to one […]
Two natural hearts Whilst most people were busy making plans for their loved ones on this, one of the most commercial money making days of the year, I was toiling in front of my laptop. Don’t get me wrong, I do have a heart and I have been known to give ladies bunches of flowers, […]