This very grainy, distant digi-scoped image shows a leucistic Curlew - which Clare and I found yesterday at the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust reserve on the Severn, Dolydd Hafren. Leucism is a genetic mutation that prevents melanin from being deposited normally on feathers, but this one was feeding and flying normally with the flock, quite happy with its own identity! If there had been a Peregrine about, I can guess which one it might have targeted.
Friday 16 March 2012
Tuesday 13 March 2012
More on Bhutan
Thursday 8 March 2012
10 Days in Bhutan
I am just back from a visit to Bhutan, with an Ornitholidays group. We spent some time admiring the architecture of the dzongs (such As Punakha Dzong, right). A dzong is a fortified monastery that also serves as local government offices.
Each dzong is full of sacred Buddhist artworks, such as these Black-necked Cranes (right).
The cranes winter in small numbers in one Bhutan valley, where we watched about 160 as they fed on tubers and filled the air with loud trumpeting calls. Here are three of my group aiming for full-frame photos (right).
Tuesday 6 March 2012
The roar of a Peregrine stooping....
No photo to accompany this tale, it all happened so fast! In the garden just now, I heard a loud roar like a corrugated iron sheet falling off a roof. Looking up, I saw a Peregrine flying away with prey. Putting a scope on the ash tree it landed in, I saw that we will now have one less Great Spotted Woodpecker at our feeders!
I'll put up something about Bhutan soon!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)