Friday, April 01, 2011

A visiting South African goes british birding!

Sal came over to England to visit her sisters and do some genealogy! She also wanted to do some British Birding so Allan and I arranged to meet her at Barnes. Sal was staying in London for this part of her trip.Allan and his wife Catherine were joined by Sal's nephew and neice.
Thursday 31st March.
Despite the windy and rainy conditions - it got better later!
Sal was able to id some of the Birds and we added several more to her list! The funny bit was in the collection where we had to be careful of which birds she could tick and which were "plastic!".
We heard several others - Goldcrest, Goldfinch and Cetti's but no sign! As for the Reed Buntings that are all over the place they were invisible!

Ducks- Mallard, Gadwall,Shovler,Wideon,Tufted,Teal
Waders- Redshank, Lapwing
Oh yes and for the first time ever I watched a Snipe swimming!
Little and Great Crested grebes.
Cormorants and Grey Herons
Mute Swans, Coots and Moorhens.
Herring, Lesser and Greater B Gulls - (where were the BH Gulls?)
Crow, Jackdaw, Magpie and a Jay
Robin, Great ,Blue and LT Tits.
Chaffinch,Starlings and those green things that make a noise!
Canada and Greylag Geese and Mute Swans
A year tick for me - Sand Martins...
no birds of prey seen - altho someone reported a Red Kite! Sal had seen lots of those!
I may have forgotten some.....

Interesting all three of us - Sal, Catherine and I are retired teachers! (all ealy of course!)
The other area of interest is SA and Kruger-
so it was interesting to hear how Allan and Catherine fell in love with Africa( honeymoon in Kenya) and then the buying of a house within driving distance of the Kruger!

A really good day!

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