Disclaimer

Please note that all photographs,records and descriptions remain the property of the person(s) posting them.Permission must be obtained from the relevant owner before they may be reproduced or copied.


Membership of the blog is free.To participate simply email your details to swalesbirding@gmail.com
Note: if you click on Photographs then press F11 images will become larger. Please post a max of 3 shots/day,unless the shots are of rarities.















Sunday 24 August 2014

Not my shots.



 These are not my shots, but a number of us will most certainly be in the 2nd one. The 1st photograph was at the Grey cheeked thrush in Herts (2005?), the second was at a Black-billed cuckoo on St.Mary's 1985 and what a day that was! We got of the Sickonian and within hours we had Rose breasted grossbeak,Parulla warbler,yellow-billed cuckoo,black-billed cuckoo,bobolink and red eyed vireo. Is that Steve Howell in the bottom left?

19 comments:

Alex said...

Black-billed Cuckoo....now there's a tart tick !

Seymour said...

And I've seen two in the UK! Not Steve Howell Nige, he was back in Mexico/Point Reyes in Oct '85. I think we'd left the bird by the time the masses arrived.....

Steve Hinton said...

Black billed and Yellow billed cuckoo will be very difficult birds to get back! Especially being always one dayers!
Sadly those days are gone!

Phil B said...

Probably one of the best days rarity-wise Scilly has ever had! There were reckoned to to be over 1200 birders on the island by dusk that Saturday...there was no point being on the mainland, no-one left there to find anything. Haven't times changed. And Black-billed Cuckoo remains a big gripper, long may it continue, not many left on my list from 1980s.

Slaphead said...

Also there but we did'nt catch up with until later in the week, Night heron, American GP, Black duck,bee eater,booted warbler and Pec sand. But the highlight of that trip was Dave Palmers son sat at one end of a storm drain and watching passers by walk past and as they did he shouted 'HELP! I'm stuck in the drain" unbelievable how many fell for it.

Slaphead said...

Just thought, bloody hell! Myrtle warbler on the 1st day too! The Palmers son episode was whilst watching spotted sand(?).

Seymour said...

Yep, an incredible week - I saw 15 lifers in 9 days and that Parula was a peach!
Phil - I thought the 1200 was the total at the Philly Vireo in 1987?

Seymour said...

What's also very noticeable from the BB Cuckoo photo is how young everyone is. If you were at a similar-sized twitch nowadays the majority there would be old duffers (like us)!
The golden age of British birdwatching....

MauriceC said...

I was there. yes an amazing year. Seymour is right about SNGH. Apart from ages of the observers optics have definitely gone up market.

Phil B said...

Guess your right Seymour, the Philly Video crush in 1987 was a memorable event. Remember how many of the birders gathered there ran off when an easy to see Corncrake was found just around the corner, including me who needed it at the time. Yep, most of the birders were fresh-faced youths in those days, crappy bins and scopes and hardly two h'pennies to rub together, but still we all made the pilgrimage to the fables isles. No it's an old trouts hobby (no offence intended) so not long till my bus pass is due and I can chase birds up and down with the blue rinse set!

Phil B said...

....three weeks on Scilly in Oct 1984 for the all-in grand sum of £180, including Scillonian and student rail fare to Penzance...them was the days!

Slaphead said...

I doubt if you could get there for £180 today,let alone stay there for 3 weeks.

Seymour said...

I think Slap' still needs Corncrake!? Tick tock, tick tock....
£180 is about what it cost me to twitch the Cape May Warbler last year!

Richard G. Smith said...

I think I can see a load of Hertel Reiss Televari scopes - sorry milk bottles in use - one guy has a spacemaster wow! AND next to no cameras - the opposite would be true today where camera devices would outnumber scopes and bins? That was one of the most memorable days in my birding life. Wasn't there a Rose breasted Grosbeak as well?

Phil B said...

Hertel & Reiss, aka Hernia & Rupture. Also a few Nickel Bullworkers in the shot too! Ah, draw tube scopes, bloody useless!

Slaphead said...

I thought you had a B&L draw tube? not forgetting a green/brown waxed coat that smelled like a 3 week old herring and drainpipe jeans.

Phil B said...

Slap, in those days I was the proud owner of a H & R scope and Optolyth bins, optics that were about as watertight as a mermaid's bra! Birding thr rain was a nightmare. As for birding attire, that was no less effective - yes drain pipe jeans (Levi, of course), a pair of Doc Martins and a Barbour wax jacket that had so many holes in it I looked as if I'd been shot with a blunderbuss. The modern birder doesn't know he's born.

Alex said...

Personally can't believe I ever managed to see anything through my old optics! These days without my Iphone I would be lost in the field. No field guides, no bird calls, no bird news, no phone scoping, no GPS (where are you ?... Errr not sure, I think I am on St Mary's, anyway it's sort of a brown field with a big green bush at the end somewhere near Telegraph...). The joy of finding a rare on the far side of Tresco followed by the pain of climbing the nearest tree to try and get a message out on your CB to all the birders sat in the Cafés on St Mary's! Like Phil says, never to be repeated experiences. Oh, and of course the pure joy of watching Glamorgan's finest birders disappearing on the Sickllonian as we all headed to St Agnes to tick Yellow-browed Bunting ;-)

Seymour said...

"Glamorgan's finest birders"?? You definitely needed better binos back then Al!