Fog over The Scrubs This morning’s shoot with CBS News at The Scrubs was decidedly murky. They filmed me taking some members of the Peut-Etre Theatre (www.peutetretheatre.co.uk) on an urban birding crash course. They are putting together a children’s play that featured city birds and had wanted my advice. After a fairly birdless wander I […]
American Flamingo & Gyr Falcons (JJ Audubon) A frustrating day was had today crowned by the loss of all 600 or so of my contacts and phone numbers from my stupid malfunctioning Blackberry. I won’t even bore you with the details. All I will say is that there was a lot of shouting involved with […]
Black-headed Gulls (Russell F Spencer) It looks like Lee Evans is the flavour of the month as I met with him this morning at the Birdguides offices for an interview. The idea was for him to put the record straight after his contentious appearance on Twitchers – A Great British Obsession. I thought that he […]
Searching (Russell F Spencer) The topic of the day on the birding forums and my twitter was the Twitching programme on BBC4 last night. I think it left the viewer under no uncertain terms as to what a twitcher was and to what lengths they would go to achieve a tick. In a nutshell, it […]
(Russell F Spencer) A busy week was had since my last posting. The highlights included being invited to be a writer on the 20/20Vision (http://www.2020v.org/index.asp). For those who don’t know about this innovative project it is – in their words – Britain’s most ambitious conservation multi media initiative to communicate the link between the restoration […]
Looking east to Canary Wharf It’s a long way down! The empty skies looking south Our viewing platform What a gorgeous day today was! My day started at Canary Wharf at 8am trying to find birds in the estate. Apart from a pair of Peregrines, a couple of Robins, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Magpies, a […]
My new charges I am now the proud babysitter of a pair of goldfish that were foisted onto me by a holidaying neighbour. What she doesn’t realise is that I have a terrible record with this member of the carp family. Most if not all have died whilst in my care. It’s funny, I was […]
Wood Pigeons (Russell F Spencer) Today was an important day. I actually woke up before sunrise (which is what I do every day) but this time I headed out of the house and went to The Scrubs to be greeted by a gorgeous – if cold – sunny day. The visible migration was good with […]
Upland Sandpiper Cory’s Shearwater Atlantic Canary Bar-tailed Godwit being harassed by a Blackbird 1st winter American Redstart White-rumped Sandpiper All images copyright of Russell F Spencer As you probably know, I got back from The Azores on Tuesday after being held up on Flores (my favourite Azorean island) due to the tropical storm created in […]
Flores: the view above the clouds The Flores Birders The angry sea I finally left Flores yesterday after several days waiting at the airport. We headed to the main island of San Miguel, some 400 miles away, to pick up today’s flight to Lisbon that connected with one to Gatwick. I will furnish you with […]
Great Grey Shrike (Anders Price) I have been in tears all day – from the second I opened my eyes this morning to this very moment. You see, I have been on The Azores for 8 days now. Many of you will be thinking ‘lucky bugger’ and you would be right for thinking those thoughts, […]
A poor Red Fox It’s been a bit of a manic few weeks for me – what with a touch of traveling and a shed load of writing. I’ve also been trying to keep an eye on The Scrubs, although I have dipped on two separate Ring Ouzels (my favourite bird as a lot of […]
Whilst everyone was sweating over the true identity of the Alder/Willow Flycatcher on Blakeney, Norfolk, a few London listers were fretting over inner London’s first White-winged Black Tern discovered on Sunday over at Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens. Although a truly amazing record, like the Norfolk Emphid flycatcher, it only went to illustrate that age-old urban birding […]
TUB at Rainham You probably won’t believe this but last night I was rubbing shoulders with London’s fashionistas in an impressive building situated in salubrious Belgravia. Despite the presence of pretty fashionable people, it was in the main a most dull evening. Catwalks bore the hell out of me. Bone-freak models strutting up and down […]
The very top (photographer not known) The assembled crowd (milan obradovic) The Usce Tower (vlada marinkovic) I journeyed over to Serbia on Thursday morning in the company of documentary maker, Ceri Levy, as he was attending to shoot some footage for his forthcoming film ‘The Bird Affect’. Arriving in Belgrade I was surprised as to […]
Born out of a Facebook conversation a couple months ago with Belgrade birder, Dragan Smic, the Usce Tower, Belgrade was set up. Full story tomorrow. I’m knackered! TUB & Dragan Simic (Milan Obradovic) Enjoying the view (Milan Obradovic) Birders viewing Caspian Gulls (Milan Obradovic) TUB being interviewed by Serbian TV (Milan Obradovic) TUB briefing Serb […]
TUB with some of the kids from a local schools outside Queens Park What a few days! I have been working my proverbials off on the several projects that I am running concurrently. These schemes range from setting up a new migration watchpoint in Serbia to organising the Canary Wharf Migrant Bird Project, working on […]
Common Lizard – my first on The Scrubs! Oops! He’s spotted me! This morning, indeed the whole of the day was superb. Beautiful sunshine throughout. This morning I was up at The Scrubs on the hunt for newly arrived migrants, especially of the raptor variety. We were successful in seeing a couple of coasting Sparrowhawks, […]
TUB knocking out a concerto (Penny Hayhurst) Tuition on bow holding (Penny Hayhurst) No birding for me this morning, despite the fact that there seems to be tons of migrants swilling around at the moment. Maybe I’ll catch up with some tomorrow. Instead, I had a violin lesson! It was a surprise birthday present from […]
Looking SW from Tower 42 Looking into murk I arose from my bed at 4.30am with a heart filled with so much hope, despite the constant drizzle that I encountered in the darkness. At 6am when I rolled up outside the Tower 42 building, I greeted the other fellow watchers under a blanket of grey […]