Lesvos selection April / May 2013.

Chukar

Rufous Bush Robin

Short-toed Eagle

Black-headed Bunting

Ruppell's Warbler

Black Stork

Wood Sandpiper

Masked Shrike

Blue-headed Wagtail

Speyside weekend, April 2013.

White-tailed Eagle, Speyside April 2013.

Being mobbed by Common Buzzard.

We spent a very pleasant long weekend in Speyside last month watching Golden Eagle and this magnificent White-tailed Eagle being mobbed by a Common Buzzard overhead. Summer visitors were late although we managed to find a Tree Pipit near Glen Feshie while watching Crested Tits and a single male Ring Ouzel in the valleys.

Back in Grantown-on-Spey a party of seven Waxwings were entertaining visitors in town.

Long-eared and Scops Owls, Lesvos May 2013.

Long-eared Owl, Papiana May 2013.

Long-eared Owl, Papiana May 2013.

Most birders stay at the central location of Skala Kalloni during their trip to Lesvos in the spring. The nearby village of Papiana with its Eucalyptus-lined streets is a favourite spot for roosting owls and these Long-eared and the Scops Owl were easily seen during our tour there in late April and May.

Scops Owl, Papiana May 2013. 

Little Owl near Ipsilou, May 2013.

White-throated Robin, Lesvos May 2013.

Back from a week on Lesvos, leading the Ornitholidays tour there for the fourth consecutive year. White-throated Robin Irania gutturalis occurs most years but they are normally one-day birds but this year a couple of males were holding territory in the west of the island.

Male White-throated Robin.

Male Red-backed Shrike.

Dumfries & Galloway in April.

A great county for birding in south-west Scotland. Possible to be watching upland birds like these Black Grouse or even Golden Eagles in the remotest parts, large numbers of geese on the Solway with (if conditions are right), a bit of seawatching thrown in.

Pink-footed Geese and Barnacle Geese near Islesteps.

Barnacle Geese loafing on the wetland at RSPB Mersehead.

Male Northern Wheatear at Mersehead 19 April 2013.

In this very 'late' spring I've managed to pick up the usual migrants in D&G over the last week. Sand Martins (at last!), Swallows, Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers, Wheatears and Sandwich Terns are a few of the species I saw in good numbers. A male Redstart in song at Kirkonnell Flow NR and more surprisingly, another in a hedge at Mersehead RSPB on 19th shows that migration is at last underway.

Watching the sea in near gale force SW winds at Southerness Point produced 2 Arctic Skuas (plus another two skuas that were probably Poms but I saw them late), many Common Scoters, Red-throated Divers, Fulamars, a few Manx Shearwaters and Arctic Terns.

Still 3000+ Barnacle Geese on 'my bit' of the Solway. They'll be around until early May so hopefully some more time to watch them before they head for Svalbard.

Hawfinches at Sizergh Castle, Cumbria 5/4/13.

Five Hawfinches showed well in the car park yesterday morning. They fed on the ground the whole time birders stayed in their cars.