My Blog - Jeff Clarke

A window in the diary is a rare thing and definitely not to be wasted. A quick check on the weather forecast for Monday 24th November, sunny! Time to get the camera out. A quick phone call to my mates Ian and Danny meant that an hour later we were set for a rendezvous at Flamborough. Our arrival at the B&B in Bempton coincided with a stupendous night sky with the Milky Way on full show. As promised the sun duly rose above the North Sea and we started the day with a seawatch. The predicted North-Westerly was in fact due West. No Little Auks today, but there were plenty of compensations in the form of twelve or more Harbour Porpoise and a Short-eared Owl we picked up in-coming from about 4 miles out. We then headed for South Landi...

ORCADIAN RHYTHM Touchdown in Malaga! As the majority of the Cheshire Mammal Group posse disembarked the flight hopes were riding high. We crammed our luggage into the two hire cars and realised there was no space left for passengers. Mmm... this was going to be interesting! The drive was not without its moments. I for one will never forget that the word for insulin in Spanish is insulina and how the addition of that one letter renders what you are saying completely unintelligible to a Spanish Doctor and his multitude of clinical practitioners. Panic over we approached our destination and discovered the track down to the villa was having a fiesta of potholes. Three passengers were ejected to allow the luggage laden jalop...

The last week of March and the only gap in my diary represented an opportunity to combine research and reward. A recce to Extremedura in preparation for future guided wildlife trips, a chance to photograph some stellar species, combined with a bit of boys banter, held much promise. Extremadura is a much vaunted wildlife destination and this short jaunt justified that claim.

I made the trip in company of Messrs Ian Appleton, Anthony Brandreth and Daniel Pegg and we based ourselves at Torrejon el Rubio just a short distance from the fabled Monfragüe National Park.

Some birds are more of a dream than a reality and a high Arctic denizen such as Ivory Gull seldom make an appearance in the UK, preferring to spend most of their time scavenging around Polar Bear kills, or a deceased cetacean. When they do occur here they are most likely to be found standing atop a decaying beached whale, or seal. In recent years that had become an exceptionally rare occurrence, but that was about to change...

The late Autumn and early Winter of 2013 has delivered an unprecedented arrival of 1st Winter Ivory Gulls in the UK. Most of the birds appeared in the wake of a devastating low pressure system that ripped across the Atlantic from Greenland and made landfall with a massive storm surge on the 5th December.

Before I begin, let me state for the record that I am not a 'Twitcher', I gave that game up in the early eighties, but yesterday was a beautiful December day and a rather unique Crossbill opportunity presented itself, for within a comfortable day's journey it would be possible to see and photograph Common, Parrot and Two-barred Crossbill. I was joined in my quest by fellow naturalist and good egg, Anno.

First stop would be Broomhead Reservoir, a rather lovely spot in South Yorkshire. The low sun had not yet penetrated the larches where the Two-barred Crossbills were likely to be present so we walked towards the sunlit areas. There were plenty of birds around and a bit of loud pishing immediately brought in a sizeable flock of Common Crossbill. Getting reasonable images was another matter as they were mostly backlit.