BOURC 39th Report

I should point you at this BOURC 39th Report.

This sort of thing is what I've been doing recently. Three British firsts forYorkshire. Yorkshire rules.

Includes the belated acceptance of of White-throated Sparrow from Hull, February 1893, shot in the grounds of Holderness House. Holderness House is now a retirement home for Laydeees, which is about as 'Little Britain' as you can get.



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I don't have any real ones... (*sobs*)

Some noises.

Another Yellow-browed Warbler in Newtonhill this morning, at the Mill Garden - it distracted my attention from a couple of Blackcaps by sneaking up behind me and calling from the tops of the sycamores, then performing like a tart for 20 minutes. Got a few calls thanks to the new improved Remembird II (much better gain). And here they are, just for fun, but showing some of the variation in YbW calls.

Listen here.

And this one

Listen here, if you want :-)

Approach with caution...

From Birdguides today...


Viscious little b*stards these Empidonax flycatchers.


They go for your flies anyway.

Flight identification of European dolphins

Oh ho. A quick one hour trip down to the cliffs this evening to look for pirates and cows, 18:15 - 19:20. Immediately I got there, saw a lot of dolphin activity on calm seas. It was a flock of at least 12 White-beaked Dolphins. Some of them were breaching anthropomorphically happily, like these two.

White-beaked Dolphins.

These fantastic photos will form the basis of my forthcoming book 'Flight Identification of European Dolphins'. In all good bookstores and quite a few rubbish ones by December 2027.

A single Harbour Porpoise too.

Birds quiet - 12 Manx Shearwaters north, 39 Common Scoters, 39 Sandwich Terns south. Plenty Atlantic Puffins around still, and a few Razorbills feeding young on the water. Three Great Skuas, including a couple on the water, viz...

Great Skua

When I finished, I realised I'd been sitting with my foot on this dead vole. Or at least it was dead now. Either way, it made me hungry for tea.

Bird Photograph of the Year 2010

The rest of you may as well throw in the towel now. Follpwing my triumphant effort with the 2008 Girdleness Bluethroat, here, I gave my competitors a chance last year. But inspired to regain my crown, I humbly submit this year's entry, a careful study of the King Eider at the Ythan today.


Believe me, I have a lot more like this.

Not dead, only sleeping

I'm alive, just busy, honest.

Here's a colour-ringed Common Eider photo'd today at Newtonhill - he's defending that female to his right against the attentions of all the spotty specky geeky other males. Anyway, his white-over-green left leg identifies him as being ringed on the Ythan estuary as a chick in 1984. Hope I'm still alive and mated up when I'm 26.

Excuse the cropped phone-cam thingy.

title tbc