Friday 6 June 2014

Spring 2014 summary

An utter lack of posts on this blog is largely down to a total lack of time; it seems having an SLR means that you spend most of your free time processing photos and writing a blog post too has been beyond me in such a hectic spring. I've actually been working on my Flickr portfolio, which you can visit at https://www.flickr.com/jrmjones/.

April and May weren't exactly busy for me on the bird front; I visited Southern France at the end of March for a weekend with Dan Pointon and collected Citril Finch, a distant Wallcreeper and, erm, Fischer's Lovebird for WP tally. Easter weekend was again spent with Dan (and his dad), this time in Corsica where we had a truly wonderful four days. Great views of both the nuthatch and finch were afforded and there were some great orchids too, not to mention the scenery and food. What a beautiful place!

  Corsican Nuthatch

Tongue Orchid

I was fortunate enough to get a new car in early May and that's naturally helped to mobilise me considerably. As such, lots more trips during the month - mainly for orchids and butterflies:

Grizzled Skipper

Fly Orchid

 Pearl-bordered Fritillary
 Burnt-tip Orchid

But also a few birds too, like the Dotterels on Pendle Hill in Lancashire. Having these things running around you feeding and interacting, utterly unconcerned, was a genuinely astounding experience and I'll be sure to go back next year.

About as good as it gets ...


So, that is a whistlestop summary of my spring. Not really done it justice, but check out my Flickr page for plenty more images. I've yet to get round to uploading all the Corsica images, but that'll be my first task on return from Russia - another reason I've not had time to do anything to this blog, organising the trip there has been a bit hectic..! We're off to the Ural Mountains for a couple of weeks, primarily bird-related but with the outside chance of some interesting mammals too (Brown Bear, Siberian Weasel etc). We may also have the chance to do some pioneering stuff down towards Kazakhstan. Watch this space, I hope!