This was a morning visit with my daughter Katherine. We started at Marine Lake and then called in at Marshside RSPB, Crossens and Banks Marsh. There were staggering numbers of wildfowl, Geese and waders present. Photography was not easy due to the distances.
Goosander - A 1st winter bird on Marine Lake.
Smew - A 1st winter drake seen on Marine Lake
Pintail - Large numbers of this species were seen on Marshside RSPB
Teal - 1000s of Teal were present in the area.
Marshside RSPB seen from Crossens Road. Thousands of Lapwing and Golden Plover were present as well as the wildfowl.
The following video shows just a few of the 50,000 Pink-footed Geese that spend the Winter on the Ribble Estuary. The video was taken at Banks Marsh. Sorry about the shaky video.
A female Montagu's Harrier was reported in the Ivinghoe/Cheddington/Long Marston area on 25th June although it appears it had been seen over several days. It was seen every after that but was extremely elusive and eventually is was considered that the best time and place to see the bird was early morning or in the evening on a large field between Cheddington and Long Marston.
I visited the site early on 27th June and stayed for about 7 hours and failed to see it. I then tried again on 30th June and after a wait of almost two hours, the bird fly SW across the field and disappeared into Herts. About eight of us were present and saw the bird. This was a county tick for me and many other people.
The Harrier field on the Cheddington to Long Marston Road.
Montagu's Harrier - a good view of the underwing
The white rump can be seen in this photo.
More distant but showing a view of the upperwing.
Brown Hare - several were present.
Yellow Wagtail - There was a lot of breeding activity from our viewpoint with a good number breeding in this one field
Skylark - Also lots of Skylarks singing and flying around. Nice to get one almost in full view!
A early morning walk (6:45 star) in Egypt and Dorney Woods certainly produced large numbers of singing birds. Several Tit species, plus Blackbird, Song Thrush, Chiffchaff and Blackcap. I was particularly interested in the scarer species to photograph and the only ones I found were Treecreeper and Spotted Flycatcher.
Treecreeper - Not a rare species but not that common and often hard to find. Merlin picked this calling bird up high in the trees.
Spotted Flycatcher - Again at a territory in Dorney Wood
During a visit on 13th July 2025 I saw several juveniles being fed by the adults.
Song Thrush - These Song Thrushes were also present.
A visit to Homefield Wood near Marlow produced a lot of singing birds, all fairly common. The best bird species was Marsh Tit which is not common in this area.
Marsh Tit - More than one family parties were present but always difficult to photograph!
Great Tit - A juvenile
Small Skipper
Light Emerald Moth
Sparrowhawk - Just as we were leaving this Sparrowhawk sored overhead
Every year we arrange for the Common Terns to be ringed by the Hughenden Ringing Group. Pete and Steve from the group worked together to fit BTO and colour rings to the Common Terns and BTO rings to the Black-headed Gulls.
Simon and Steve collecting the chicks from the rafts
Common Tern - the 20 or so adults Terns were not happy on the intrusion.
Black-headed Gull - Also showing is displeasure at the disturbance.
Common Tern being fitted with a green colour ring with characters between F13 and F27
Black-headed Gull just after being fitted with a BTO ring.
