Rose Coloured Starling

Mablethorpe Victoria Road
In back garden of No 95 feeding on the guys bird table, it sat with just its head visable on his pagoda, then it would fly off to the Council compound across the road from the car park were it would feed around the rubbish bags from the waste bins.
Watched for two hours in crappy weather, dull and dark then raining, always a great distance away in the compound when the sun came out.

Crossbill

Kirkby Moor
Two females a male and a Juvenile,coming to a puddle along the track at the edge of the pines.

Crossbill

Nice male.

GOA INDIA

Several new pictures added under April
Great Crested Tern, Golden Fronted Leafbird, Indian Golden Oriole,Asian Openbill, Common Myna,Coppersmiths Barbet and Clamorous Reed warbler, many more to come.

Marsh Harrier

A nice male in Lincolnshire.

Pied Wagtail

Something different, Digby Fen.

Reed Warbler

Sat in front of hide Boultham Mere.

Whimbrel

Boultham Mere
A good local rare, crap morning, dull cold and wet.

Avocet

Somewere in deepest darkest Lincolnshire.
This bird flew after a Black headed Gull, we then saw why, two small young nearby, a first breeding record inland for this site.

Black Necked Grebe

Whinchat

Gibraltar Point
Highlight of another 4 hours at Gib, a single Whinchat and a Lovely Female Ring Ouzel.

Mediterranean Gulls

Boultham Mere Lincoln
Presumed adult male and a second summer female.

WHITE STORK

LINCOLN BOULTHAM MERE, Thursday evening
Stood in a field up from our local patch, taken at 9.00pm in the rain, watched for 15 minutes or so before it flew off towards the bypass, what was no doubt the same bird flew low over me on Station Road Bardney the following morning, it went down somewere on the fens near Bardney Abbey.Many Thanks to Andy for the prompt phone call, this was my 200th bird for the area.

Grey Partridge

Lincoln area.

Hare

Gibraltar Point
Kept running past hide.

Coot

Just look at them great big feet.

Common Sandpiper

Gibraltar Point

Avocet

Gibraltar Point

Common Swift

Boultham Mere
Not alot else really today, beside a brief fly over Greenshank.

Copmmon Whitethroat

Boultham Mere

Wood Warbler

Gibraltar Point Lincolnshire
Watched for over an hour but could be lost for quite long periods, never sang just catching insects low down along the bank in dense dark bush's, gave stunning close views but to hard for pictures, so these efforts turned out well.

Little Gull

Gibraltar Point Lincolnshire
Three first summer Little Gulls on Tennyson's

Avocet

Gibraltar Point Lincolnshire.

Kirkby On Bain Pits

Sat on main pit for an hour then flew to tip pit.

Green Hairstreak

Gibraltar Point Lincs
First of the year.

Whitethroat

Boultham Mere

Hobby

Boultham Mere
Showed well this morning, high over hide end before drifting towards the Swanpool/Birchwood area.

GOA INDIA 13TH-27TH APRIL

A two week holiday based at Apora near Baga north Goa, we birded for a couple of hours morning and evening (it got hot) as well as three days at Backwoods camp, and a trip out to Carambolin Lake and Bhatim Lake.
We saw just over 200 species which is a good count for the time of the year as all the winter visitors had virtually moved on. We used local taxis which were very cheap, starting at about six quid for a couple of hours, birding was hard due to the heat but Backwoods was superb, we had LEO for the three days and he got us 44 new species.We also used Santosh for a couple of hours which cost about eight quid and within five minutes of arriving at his site we had Indian Pitta and Brown Wood Owl, both gave stunning views.

Backwoods e-mail backwoodsgoa@hotmail.com 70 pound with all transport.
Santosh e-mail goabirdingsantosh@hotmail.com

Tambdi Surla Temple

One of the areas you will bird watch from at Backwoods, good for Raptors as well.

Butterflies

We saw hundreds of Butterflies of several species, 3-4 weeks before we arrived it rained and put water back into some of the dried up pools and rivers,this made the Butterflies emerge a few weeks earlier than normal, though what the knock on effect of this will be no one knows yet, but its not good, Global Warming at work maybe.
As well as ones pictured below we also saw, Common Bluebottle, Common Jay, the awesome, Malabar Banded Peacock, several small blues, Common Grass Yellow and Spot Swordtail to name a few.

COMMON INDIAN CROW

COMMON ROSE

GLASSY TIGER

STRIPED TIGER

TAWNY COSTER

Malabar Giant Squirrel

We saw at least a dozen of these massive squirrels around backwoods Camp, they are about a metre long and make one hell of a racket when calling, we also saw Palm Squirrels which were very common eveywere, they look like Chipmunks, other mammals seen included Rats, Mice, Grey Mongoose and Indian Hare. Several species of Bats were seen from Pip sized ones th huge Fruit Bats

Western Ghats Flying Lizard

Look hard enough its there on the tree, and they do fly, awesome we only saw two this one, and one that leapt across several metres in front of me.

Lizards

We saw several species of Lizards, Skinks and Gecko's, plus two Snakes and about 5 species of Frog/Toad

Indian Bison

Indian Elephants

Awesome creatures, especially the one at Backwoods Camp.

Bonnet Macaque

Not as common as the Langurs which we saw everywere, including in Hotel grounds, we only saw the Macaque's at Backwoods Camp.

Black Faced Langur

Bronzed winged Jacana

Brahminy Kite

Apora

Black Kite

Various dates.

Bronzed Winged Jacana

Bhatim Lake
A very poor show at Carambolim Lake, only a single bird seen due to lake being drained, a hundred plus at Bhatim along with 30 odd Pheasant Tailed Jacanas, awesome birds.

Cotton Pygmy Teal

Bhatim lake, about 35 minutes from apora, easilt seen though always distant, but a scope gives good views as the lake is not massive, loads of birds here, Lesser Whistling Ducks, both Jacanas, Herons and Egrets in the hundreds, Bee-Eaters and 3 sp of Kingfishers, well worth a few hours sat at the road side here.

Crested Serpant Eagle

Apora Woods
Perched high up for several minutes untill this White Bellied Drongo chased it off.

Brown Wood Owl

Found by Santosh at one of his sites.

Asian Openbill

Cracking birds feeding in a field along side the main road towards the resort

Indian Peafowl

Apora Woods
Much easier to see in march and april as they venture out into the bare fields, this male walked out behind me, we also saw them on Baga hill, perched in trees early morning.Females were much more numerous but we saw more males in Apora.

Hooded Oriole

Not common but seen most days especially around Apora woods, in song and sat in same trees as Indian Golden Orioles, easy to see in mornings but high in trees late afternoons, awesome sight.

Golden Fronted Leafbird

Apora woods, a really hard bird to get a decent look at, but we managed in the end, a stunning bird, only seen at Apora and Backwoods mostly in flight or right at the tops of large trees in the Canopy.

Brahminy Kite

Apora

Ashy Prinia

Baga Hill
Common and seen most days in the hotel ground, one of three Prinia's we saw, Grey-breasted and Plain being the other two, very active and really hard to get a picture of.