Cape Sugarbird, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Cape Town, South Africa

We have just had an amazing couple of weeks in Cape Town, birdwatching and drinking lots of wine ! I have many pics to show you which will be on here in a day or so. Just to keep you going I have a short video of a Cape Sugarbird feeding on the proteas in Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. We saw many sugarbirds on these pincushion flowers. Both the flowers and the birds were absolutely spectacular. I wish we were still there !!

A day at Spurn - Red-breasted Flycatcher and Yellow-browed Warblers

 

Red-breasted Flycatcher

With easterly winds forecast and quite a few birds in we headed to Spurn. It was a Saturday but nothing prepared us for the amount of other folk that also headed to Spurn. Never in our lives have we seen so many people (apart from a twitch), there were hundreds, if not thousands of people there. Lots of yellow-browed on the pager and we saw 3 of them along with this red-breasted flycatcher and a firecrest that were all good birds to see. Turned out to be quite a good day !

Alaska - Bald Eagles and Hump-backed Whales

We are going away on Wednesday to Cape Town, South Africa so getting the bags ready. What a shock to find an SD card in the bottom of a ruck sac from our trip to Alaska last year. Lots of whale pics and Bald Eagle pics......what a trip, would do it again in an instant ! 

Beautiful forest with a couple of bald eagles sitting proud. Stunning scenery and all from the comfort of a cruise ship

Such stunning scenery with bald eagles keeping watch

We saw hump-backed whales every single day, lots of them. This was, without doubt, a fantastic trip!

A few birds from last week

 

Yellow Wagtails

The pink-footed geese arrived last week in their thousands. The field on the Humber are covered. Lovely to hear them wink winking over. A sign that the seasons are starting to change.

Grey Wagtail

Elephant Hawk Moths on our fuchsias

 

We have found quite a few of these caterpillars in the garden this year, feasting on our fuchsias, one of their favourite foods

A few from the garden

Our garden has started to look a bit tired now, the seasons are beginning to change but our plants and flowers have done us proud all this summer. We will soon be re-potting all the fuschias and putting them in the greenhouse for the winter months but we are still enjoying the last of the blooms. We still have lots of tomatoes to ripen so desperately need more days of sun and our chillies and peppers are still going strong in the greenhouse. The courgettes are now all in the freezer along with the sweetcorn and we are already planning what we are growing next year !

Just a small snap of our border which has been spectacular this year

Chicken of the Woods fungus

Started our chilli harvest, all now in the freezer mixed with chopped tomatoes and frozen in ice cube sizes ready to pop into all our cooking. 

A lovely dragon in the garden

A bit of veg from recent days, now all prepared and frozen

Red-backed Shrikes, Donna Nook, Lincs

 

Not one, but two red-backed shrikes around the car park at Donna Nook

Monday afternoon birding doesn't get much better !

Some excellent views of the two shrikes at Donna Nook. They did both land on top of the same bush for a second. Pity the photographers hounded them, getting closer and closer with a couple walking right into the bushes.....flipping idiots !  One whinchat was the only supporting cast.