Sabah, here I come!

Hired a car last Thursday and drove to Portland where I stayed with friends Dunc and Mish, Dunc took me to Lodmoor where I got excellent views of a Savi's Warbler. The bird could be heard 'reeling' (sounding like a fishing-reel being wound-in) as we got out of the car. He also managed to find at least 4 'reeling' Eurasian Nightjars, though I didn't have much luck with photographing them.

From there I visited some relatives in Wantage and long-lost friends near Wallingford who were attending a weekend-long Beerfest at their local. Bev and Phil live near the Chiltern Hills and have Red Kites flying over their house almost constantly.

Denham House

 Glenn, Phil and Bev

 Bev and Jim

From Bev's I drove on to West Wycombe and had a great evening with Alan and Wendy, Shelly, Jim and Sharron, we went out for dinner at an incredibly nice pub (Claiming to be the oldest freehouse in England) called the 'Royal Standard of England'  at Beaconsfield

Finally I made it to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah and today Marie and I headed out to Manukan and Sapi Islands in search of the very rare Tabon Scrubfowl and a spot of snorkelling,

 Marie

Giant Monitor Lizard

Female Mangrove Blue Flycatcher

 

Male Mangrove Blue Flycatcher

Cream-vented Bulbul?

The day went well but at 3.45pm we still hadn't seen the famous fowl and the boat returning us to KK was supposed to pick us up at 4!

 Then I saw a small babbler near the spot where Marie saw the fowls a couple of days earlier and directly in front of it, there was my first! (yee-haa!)

See Picasa Web Album

Evening treat

Yesterday evening I went out with a birding-friend from Princetown, Gary Easton to take advantage of the clear skies and a drop in wind-speed. We were driving from Challacombe towards the Princetown to Moretonhampstead road when we came upon one or two Eurasian or (Northern) Hobbies catching insects above the moorland.
Fortunately I managed to get some reasonable shots of one of the birds catching and eating a butterfly (I think), the following are some of the better shots that I achieved, hope you like them....

Another volcano?

Woke up this morning ready for some birding and it's cold, wet and windy again (contrary to the weather forecast) and now to cap it all, Iceland has another volcanic eruption which threatens to smother us all in ash (...or prevent me from flying to Sabah next week... ho, hum...)

Europe on Alert

Oh well it gives me chance to fix up some pics.....

Struggling to see the sun!

Decided to update the blog as I'm back in Princetown, however the 'promised' sunshine only lasted a day and we back to cloudy with squally-showers again,

Here are a few showing how beautiful Dartmoor can look, these images were taken on Thursday, Cuckoos were calling, Redpolls displaying and Stonechats were showing-off their new families, I saw several Whinchats but they were not keen to be photographed!

 Scenery near Warren House Inn

 Pied Wagtail

 Hawthorns in bloom

 Buzzard checking me out

 Skylark

 Male Stonechat

 Dipper

Male Lesser Redpoll (have never seen one this 'strawberry-red')
Am hoping that we might get a bit more settled weather for the last week of my visit.....I will keep you posted.

Scilly trip 14-17 May 2011

Here is my belated account of our trip to the Scillies, unfortunately it was very difficult to gain internet access whilst there but I did manage to send some images to the blog via my mobile (with mixed results as you are probably aware!)

More images can be found here (http://picasaweb.google.com/aviceda/UKSabahTrip2011#)

 Penzance

 Neal on the Scillonian

View from the window of the Guest-house 'Anjeric'

 Neal with Purple 'Triffids'

 St Martins

 Harold Wilson's grave

 Tresco

 Thrift

 Neal on Tresco

Tresco

Heading back to 'reality'....

Unexpected Sighting

Was fortunate to come across this Roedeer on return at Burrator Reservoir on return from Yelverton this morning. A local cyclist that was present told me he had never had such a good view of one!

Norman's Birthday

Malcolm, Mita and I took the old fellow out to Slapton and Dartmouth for his birthday today

The sun finally came out after lunch and we saw some nice birds too!

Not very good for photography today, tomorrow perhaps?

Brief window of sunshine!

Fingers-crossed, more to come this weekend......

Surprise