Merry Christmas

  A Christmas morning stroll around Messingham Nature Reserve

  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Ivory Gull, Patrington Haven

Had our fingers crossed all week, hoping this would hang around until Saturday and we were not disappointed. When we got there, the gull was sat out in the river so at least we had seen it but we hung around and were treated to a right showing when it came down for some smoked salmon that someone had kindly left. The ground was littered with fish left for it but it selected the salmon ! This gull took Karen's life list up to 1541 and her UK tally to 356.

Crossbills, Budby, Notts

Parrot Crossbills, Budby, Notts

Took us two visits to see these. Photography wasn't easy as they remained in the top of the trees all afternoon. They seemed to want to come down to the puddles to drink but as usual, the photographers were camped out puddleside for their shots. Enough said !
A new UK bird added to Karen's list.

Kenya

We have just returned from a 2 week trip to Kenya booked through Late Deals. We flew from Gatwick which is such a pain for us to get to, that coupled with a car transporter on fire on the motorway made the journey absolutely horrendous. That was soon forgotten when we landed at Mombasa airport the following morning.  The first thing that hit us was the heat, the second thing was the price of the visas. They certainly know how to fleece you before you clear customs. Now why don't we do that to visitors in our country? We were soon in the transfer bus and on our way, eyes peeled to start the bird list.

We were based at Turtle Bay Beach Resort in Watamu. Quite close to Mida Creek and the Arabuko Sokoke Forest. We had booked Albert Baya from Spinetail Safaris as a birdguide. Albert had good reports from other trips and proved to be one of the best guides we have ever had. He had eyes like a hawk, never missing a bird even when he was driving. He was a brilliant birder and conservationist with total commitment to the environment. Albert was also a bird ringer who rang at Mida Creek.

Turtle Bay was a wonderful place to stay. It was spotless clean and the food was lovely with plenty of choice at each meal. Highly recommended and would love to go back one day. Albert would pick us up at 6am every day but by 10am the heat was too much for birds so back to Turtle Bay we came to spend the day by the pool. We had the best of both worlds. Albert would then pick us back up at 4pm until dark. The sites we visited included Mida Creek, Arabuko Sokoke Forest, Lake Jilore, Sabaki River Mouth, Lake Roka, Lake Chem Chem and Tsarvo East. A fantastic holiday with just over 300 birds, 120 of them being new for us.

The best two weeks ever !

African Scops Owl

This was in Tsarvo East. We could hear this owl calling so before dinner we rallied a team of lads with sticks (just incase there were any lions around), and we set off round Nblolo Camp to try and locate the owls. We soon had the area located and then narrowed it down to the tree. Armed with torches we soon had the owl in our sights. A first for us and also a strong contender for bird of the trip. We celebrated at dinner with a bottle of beer each !

Sokoke Scops Owl

Probably the bird of the trip. We had the most amazing guide in Albert Baya who helped us see in excess of 300 birds. Just over 100 were new birds for us. Albert could find this much sought after species at it's daytime roost, well into the dense forest.