Red-backed Shrike : Kenfig NNR 'Return Visit - When there's light there's hope'

 The juvenile/1stW Red-backed Shrike that arrived at KNNR whilst I was on holiday shows no sign of departing, as I write this it is now in it's third week and is still present today.

I had hoped to make another visit in better light and last Friday 28th October the weather duly obliged, the bird had not been reported on Thurs 27th because of poor weather and when I left home late morning there was still no news so my visit was purely speculative.

I arrived at the location where I had seen the bird previously near Post 10 on the main track and searched for about 45mins but to no avail assuming it had departed.

Disappointingly I decided to call it a day and walked back through the area where the bird had originally been found I scanned the bushes seeing a small white shape low down, it was the breast of the shrike, woohoo !!

Myself and Timmy made our way closer to the bird, the light was perfect, was the bird going to hang around for me to get some better photos, you're damn right it was !!

It performed incredibly well, perching up at about 6m distance even catching a pair of intimate mating wasps, it then proceeded to catch a cricket which it impaled on a Hawthorn spike, nature at its most violent, a joy to watch.

I watched and photographed the shrike for about 20 mins or so and although I could have stayed longer I realistically wasn't going to get any better photos than I had already obtained so called it a day.

I have to say they are some of the best images that I have managed to capture.

Myself and Timmy made our way back to the reserve centre where I treated myself to a celebratory Cappuccino and a Shortbread at the kiosk outside, very nice it was too.

I just love it when a plan comes together, unfortunately in birding it never does often enough.

Here are some of my images from a fabulous afternoon........

"You miss one great bird but you get another"

Myself and good friend and fellow 'togger' Dave Gilbert fancied a day out on Saturday 22nd October and thought that we would firstly have a look for the Red-flanked Bluetail found at The Wenallt north of Rhiwbina, Cardiff by our very own Gethin 'The Twitchmeister' Jenkins-Jones.

Although the bird had not been reported for a number of days we thought it worth a punt, you never know your luck!

Dave had visited previously with his grandson Jenson failing to see the bird but knowing the location which it had favoured, we found our way to the spot from the top car park but after scanning with binoculars for about 45mins we decided it was like looking for a needle in a haystack and called it a day.

Dave had never seen a Collared Pratincole so we decided to spend the rest of the day at WWT Slimbridge and having parked up made our way to the Discovery Hide overlooking the South Lake which the bird had been favouring since it's arrival a few days prior.

My only other sighting of a Collared Pratincole in the UK was the bird that visited WWT Penclacwydd, Llanelli back in June 2005 although I have seen them in good numbers on a holiday to Portugal in spring some years ago.

We all know that a Saturday is not the best day to visit Slimbridge and true to form the place was overrun with families with pushchairs, with a really good bird on the reserve there were also good numbers of birders/toggers present as well.

We both managed to get an open window in the hide which we shared and although the bird was always distant we both managed some decent images with me using my Canon 2x extender and both of us changing the settings on our Canon R5s from full frame to 1.6x crop factor.

This reduces the pixels from 45mp to 17mp which in such circumstances is acceptable at a push.

After returning to my X Trail in the car park for lunch we made our way back to the Discovery Hide for more of the same, we also visited some of the other hides but most birds were too distant for any meaningful photos.

Having got our target bird we decided to head for home at about 4.00pm and just about made it before the forecast rain set in, here are a few images from a very enjoyable day out.......

Snow Bunting : Kenfig NNR

The beauty of being retired is that you can dash off at any time to see a good bird which has been found, whilst keeping an eye on the local birding WhatsApp group and Birdguides I saw that a Snow Bunting had been reported feeding on the haul road at KNNR and in a location not too far from the Red-backed Shrike.

I therefore decided to make a visit on Sunday 23rd firstly calling at the location where I had previously seen the shrike.

There was one birder/togger present when I got there who introduced himself as Gareth Hughes from Crynant, a thoroughly nice bloke.

He had taken photos of the shrike but it did not show for the 10mins or so that I spent there in Gareth's company, I was not too bothered as the light was poor.

 I mentioned the Snow Bunting which he did not know about and invited him to join me to look for it, two pairs of eyes are always better than one as they say.

We soon got to the haul road where a passing walker advised us that there were two toggers at the location taking photos of a small bird which saved us from looking for it which have been easy anyway as the bunting was feeding on the edge of the road.

One of the toggers was Shaun Evans from Glynneath whose name I knew from his Facebook posts, the other I did not know.

We got down low to photograph the bunting and I managed some photos that despite the gloomy light I was pleased with, I just love a Snow Bunting, they are such charismatic little birds.

It then started to pick with rain so I took my leave of the others and by the time that I got back to the reserve centre I was soaked through as was Timmy my dog who had accompanied me.

Oh the joys of birding, it was the shower for me and the bath for Timmy as soon as we got home !!

Red-backed Shrike : Kenfig NNR

Towards the end of our holiday in Turkey I noted on BirdGuides that a juvenile Red-backed Shrike had been found in the dunes at KNNR and was showing really well.

As I've only seen two previously in the UK I hoped that it would stay until I got home so that I could get some nice photographs of it, the previous bird near Royal Porthcawl Golf Club about 4 years ago also a juvenile was always too distant to obtain quality photos.

The weather was against me upon our return and I had to wait until Thurs 20th to make a visit, I checked with fellow birder/togger Mike Pugh prior to setting off for location and directions and these were spot on.

Upon arrival there was one togger looking for the bird which was Mike Clark, not the friendliest of chaps but we were soon joined by a friendly face that I knew in Owen Erasmus before Rhos Williams turned up.

Rhos was heading for Sker and soon returned after leaving us advising that the bird had relocated a little further south and we all got on it quickly.

I got some distant 'record' shots before the bird started to show beautifully which allowed a closer approach, at that time we were also joined by Alun Davies and Richard Founds both names that I am familiar with from our South Wales Birding Facebook group of which I am one of the admin.

Mike Pugh also turned up and although the sky was grey with thick cloud resulting in poor light I got some images that I was fairly pleased with.

Turkey Holiday 2nd-16th October 2022

 Having missed out for the last 2 years due to Covid we decided this year to push the boat out to celebrate my 70th birthday by venturing to Turkey and staying at the Hilton Dalaman in Sarigerme with good friends Neil and Gail.

The hotel was fabulous and even exceeded expectations, the weather was also perfect with daytime temperatures around the 26-27 deg mark with evenings around 20-21deg.

Unfortunately the birding did not match the hotel and weather and was quite poor and disappointing with most summer migrants having already departed.

Anyway here's a few images of some of the birds and other wildlife that I did see and managed to capture with the camera, all taken with my newish Canon RF 100-500mm f4.5-7.1 IS USM zoom which turned out to be a terrific travelling lens due to it's compactness, huge thanks go to good friend and fellow 'togger' Dave Gilbert for the loan of his Canon RF 1.4x extender...........