Spring Has Arrived～

Thanks to the warm winter, spring has arrived early in UK.

The recent warm sunshine not only makes us humans feel alive again, but it also gives the birds a reason to sway their wings.

Spring is a romantic season for the birds. This pair of “early birds”, Egyptian Geese, have already had their young family.

While the Coots are well on their way to parenthood,

some Blue Tits are still house hunting.

  These two lovebirds were concentrating too much on each other to take any notice of my camera.

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Starlings Are Back～

Cold autumn/winter days may not be ideal for bird watchers in UK, but they are perfect for the starlings. Every year tens of thousands, sometimes millions, of starlings choose to spend the winter here.  

Luckily, this year, they have chosen their roosting sites in the reedbeds of a local Nature Reserve.

These gatherings usually begin in November with relatively small numbers, as seen in these photos taken last week.  

Although the starlings did not perform the famous aerial display (murmuration) that day, I was still very impressed and felt very privileged to watch these charismatic birds.

Then they disappeared into the reedbeds as fast as they arrived.  

As the weeks go on and the weather gets colder, more and more birds will arrive. Hopefully I will be able to capture larger starling gatherings this winter.

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It’s Time For A Break From Unpacking~

         

    Unpacking has taken much longer than I expected. But enough is enough, it is time for a break.

    Sitting on the beach in the company of hundreds of seagulls is more than enough to compensate for the past few week’s hard work.

  Not only is the size of the Herring Gulls impressive, but their greed for human food is also a plus for me, enabling me to get really close.

    The Herring Gulls are sometimes are nuisance for local people here because they can be aggressive around humans, especially children. So they are not everyone’s favourite birds on the west coast of the UK. However, the Herring Gull is an endangered species because its number has declined by more than 50% in the last 25 years.

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