mikeholley.bsky.social
Birder, and budding Odonata-er. Commonly found across Worcestershire. Often seen in adjacent counties, infrequent elsewhere. Habitat wetlands, meadows, heath, woodland, can occur in coastal areas.
837 posts
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Yes, not unusual there though, more than 55 were recorded last April.
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Glimpses of the Water Rail on the Hen Brook pool at #uptonwarren this morning, as it darted between the reed beds. #worcsbirds #UKBirding
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Yes, the Salwarpe path is still closed. Doesn't look as if it will be open any time soon. I miss walking up there to the Flashes instead of driving.
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All good here thank you, hope the same with you. Yes, another glorious day… I’ve been confined to base today, with pass outs cancelled, on domestics I’d pushed back too many times 😬. I should get out for a few days in the week.
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It certainly was a gorgeous day to be out. You had a good view of the Green Woody.
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I like how you just drop the Firecrests in at the end with etc...
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Do we still need the Worcester Birds feed then?
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While the other gathered material from the bank a little further upstream… #UKBirding #worcsbirds
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One of the Dippers worked the brook, close to the nest… #UKBirding #worcsbirds
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2/2 There was no sign of the Ring-necked Duck today on neither of the Camp Lane Pits pools, nor the Church Farm pits. Trying to find it wasn’t helped by the poor visibility at CLP.
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A patch birder reported the pair together yesterday, hopefully the partner was somewhere just out of sight 🤞. I was only at this spot for 10 mins. I saw both on 11/2 but only one on 29/1. BTW I’ve just finished your excellent book 👍.
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Snipe spotting was hampered by the low sun and new anti-predator netting installed on the rafts. Just two were visible today, on the northern Engine raft.
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That's encouraging news on the injured Avocet.
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Surprised that injured Avocet is still alive.
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Definitely noticed the benefit of this at Slimbridge today, stood on top of a windy Estuary Tower in full sun. Big thumbs up.
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I got one of these from the @birdersstore.bsky.social. I'm giving it a try this morning. To be honest, I'm surprised just how good it is and the difference it makes, particularly on a sunny day like today.
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There's a Ladywalk Feed that gets regular posts, the WhatsApp sightings group is more active though.
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Sounds good 👍. My birding over there goes back a bit further... I remember it being decent back then. I'm looking to get out locally more, I'll give it a try and let you know.
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The Ladywalk regulars on WhatsApp suspect they might be the dummy ones on the Sand Martin box in front of the Rudd Hide
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Years ago I used to bird around there with someone who lived nearby. From Stock Wood over to Earl's Common and Grafton Wood. Might be worth a nostalgic visit if there's a decent cafe!
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The Feed also picks up #worcsbirds, so you don’t need to worry about capitals. At the moment that hashtag (non-case sensitive) is the only criteria the Feeds function uses to collate the posts. We can add other hashtags or keywords if desired, for example a specific birding location in the county.
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The Bluesky Feed also picks up posts with the words “Upton Warren” (speech marks not required) in case someone mentions the reserve but doesn’t use the hashtag, which happened recently. That’s if people are actually using the Feed vs just searching with the hashtag. @wheatearlp.bsky.social
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2/2 Another of the wintering Curlew at Upton Warren from 7th February 2025 for this week’s #WaderWednesday. #UKBirding
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They'll happily and successfully use Bat boxes, depending on the design. In this case, the opening was too small for the Blue Tit to get in. Slits on bat boxes like this are generally 15mm to 20mm high, compared to the 25mm diameter hole recommended for Blue Tits.
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I'm not sure how well they are actually doing. There's certainly fewer around locally than I remember. 5 years ago we didn't get them in the garden. We are only seeing them now because they're adapting to loss of habitat and food sources by travelling to find food.
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I did landscape photography alongside birding for a few years, but dropped the photography in favour of more birding. I’m the same, a birder with a camera, although I’ve kept some of the practices that became second nature during years of photography, such as shooting in RAW.
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The opposite here, they're daily garden visitors. They are coming from a rookery about a mile away, where I suspect their natural food sources are in decline courtesy of the landowner and the local council. They've mastered the feeders, which is a strange sight when they cling on, wings flapping
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2/2 The AI driven auto processing takes away all the normal faff with RAW files. I don't touch 9 out of 10 RAW files at all.
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Yeah, I've shot digitally in RAW for 20 years but never liked spending hours on processing. I have even less appetite now. I was going to suggest Photolab, which has lens and body specific presets that do a cracking job extracting detail and dealing with soft images. 1/2
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Do you shoot in JPEG or RAW?
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Sound a good start. I struggled with a digital viewfinder when I considered upgrading my 7Dmk2 a while ago, it's the main reason I stayed with it. They've obviously improved since then as I got used to my Sony RX10 iv fairly quickly.
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How are you getting on with the new camera and lens?
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They’re the same genus of diving duck, Aythya, which also includes Tufted Duck and nine other species. Don’t get Scaups up here but I usually see Tufted, Pochard, and Ring-Necked Duck (when present - also Aythya) together.