March 2021

30th. A warm day, sunny and still. Lots of butterflies flying including brimstone and holly blue. A great day above Avon Gorge. Some nice flypasts of the peregrine, and at the end of the day one perched underneath the viewpoint, tolerant of two climbers about 20m away. At last I struck lucky with a confiding perched peregrine. Amazing to see the 'neck opener', the tomial 'tooth' on the upper mandible.

peregrine

peregrine

peregrine

peregrine

peregrine

peregrine

peregrine

peregrine

peregrine

peregrine

peregrine

29th. We are now allowed to travel 'locally'. Forest of Dean. First swallows (2) of the year near the Old Severn Bridge (English side). Hawfinch high up at Parkend, mandarins and marsh tit at Cannop Ponds, great grey shrike and stonechat at Crabtree Hill. We also photographed nuthatch and tits at Speech House car park, where 2 stock doves were also present.

mandarin

great grey shrike

great grey shrike

grey squirrel

28th. Back to Ashton Court - similar birds to yesterday, and we watched the fallow deer.

Ashton Court

fallow deer

27th. Ashton Court. Tree creeper, nuthatches, marsh tit around the feeder, a pair of peregrines and a kestrel overhead. Chiffchaff singing. Nuthatch and blue tit below.

nuthatch

blue tit

24th. There is an introduced population of wall lizards in the Avon Gorge. They look like Podarcis muralis maculiventris from northern Italy?

wall lizard

wall lizard

wall lizard

21st. Morning - 2 dippers, 2 kingfisher, 3 grey wagtails Snuff Mills.

grey wagtail

grey wagtail

grey wagtail

Afternoon - 3 peregrines in Avon Gorge.

peregrine

peregrine

peregrine

18th. A pair of Dippers on the Frome near Snuff Mills. Two kingfisher sightings and 3 grey wagtails too.

Dipper

Dipper

Dipper

16th. Peregrines again. One caught a redwing.

Peregrine

Peregrine

Peregrine

Peregrine with redwing

9th. More peregrines. Three in the gorge.

Peregrine

Peregrine

8th. Daily exercise on the Downs. Mistle thrush, firecrest, stock dove and peregrines. The peregrines were mating again.

Mistle thrush

Firecrest

Firecrest

Stock dove

Peregrine

6th-7th. Sunny days in the Gorge. On 7th we saw a food pass between the peregrine pair, and the pair mated in a tree in the gorge.

Avon Gorge

Grey squirrel

5th. First attempts this year at photographing peregrines. Long-tailed tit in catkins too.

Peregrine

Long-tailed tit

Long-tailed tit

1st. More fun on the Downs. Treecreeper, firecrest, and magpie.

treecreeper

firecrest

firecrest

magpie

January 2021February 2021April 2021May 2021June 2021July 2021August 2021September 2021October 2021November 2021December 2021