June 2014

12th-23rd. Orlando, Florida with my daughters. My third visit to Florida and this was a holiday with no chasing rare birds. We stayed at the Ritz-Carlton, Grande Lakes, which was superb. The hotel was well placed to allow my daughters access to the entertainment, while I could go birding in the grounds, which are an Audubon Reserve. I could watch fishing ospreys and alligators from my balcony, which had a great view. Most of the photos were taken around the hotel grounds, and nearby Shingle Creek. There were great photographic opportunities at the heronry at Gatorland too. A more detailed trip report, with extra photos will appear later.

View from the balcony.

Grande Lakes view

A young alligator.

alligator

Nine-banded armadillo.

nine-banded armadillo

White-tailed deer.

white-tailed deer

Raccoon and eastern cottontail

raccooneastern cottontail

raccoon

Anhinga.

Anhinga

Great egret.

Great egret

Great egret

Little blue heron.

Little blue heron

Great blue heron.

great blue heron

Tricoloured heron.

Tricoloured heron

Tricoloured heron

Tricoloured heron

Wood stork.

Wood stork

Limpkin.

Limpkin

Sandhill cranes and chick

Sandhill crane

Sandhill crane

Sandhill craneSandhill crane

Osprey (first being mobbed by a blue-grey gnatcatcher) and least tern.

Osprey

Ospreyleast tern

2nd - 6th. Teaching a field course at Orielton, Pembrokeshire. Bat numbers were down, with only 140 soprano pipistrelles in the warden's house, and around 70 lesser horseshoe bats in two roosts (the numbers in the boiler room have decreased from 175 to around 30 since the inefficient old boiler was replaced by a combi boiler). Photos of common (top) and soprano (below) pipistrelles below.

common pipistrelle

soprano pipistrelle

On a trip to Skomer I photographed razorbill, guillemot, fulmar and puffin. Puffin numbers were down compared with my last two visits. I saw a group of 8 choughs. The top panorama is of Skokholm and Skomer, the lower one of Broad Haven.

Skokholm and Skomer

Broad Haven

razorbill

guillemotfulmar

fulmar

puffin

puffin

rabbit

1st. Far from the madding crowd. Today's plans were too complicated to get to Dorset to see the short-toed eagle, so I spent the morning trying to photograph the Savi's warbler at Newport Wetlands. The bird sang at close range, but was always partly obscured by reeds. I also heard cuckoo, bearded reedling and lesser whitethroat.

Savi's warbler

Savi's warbler

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