Something Suspicious....

And a couple more excellent photographs the first of which is....

Common Tern. Geoff Gradwell

I'm not sure whats going on here with these birds, but what I do know is that its a cracking photograph of two Common Terns grappling beak to beak in mid-air.

RBA Pager Service.

A message this afternoon via this service informed us of two Nature Reserves in North Norfolk which have recently been targeted by egg collectors, otherwise known as thieves. The message goes on to ask birders to be always vigilant and report immediately to the local police anything suspicious including car registrations and people involved....Well they can rely on me on that one, and hope they can on you too.

I recall many years ago being with my old friend and mentor in the Rusland Valley in Cumbria in the halcyon days of staking out for hours on end in the hope of views of the enigmatic Honey Buzzard (HB) with a mix of successful and unsuccessful days. On one occasion we were joined by a man who drew up in a van with ladders on the roof rack, it was blatantly obvious what this mans station was in the world of birds and his conversation left no doubt to John and I that he was a ringer and knew far more than we did about the whereabouts of these birds, but by the end of the conversation we were none the wiser as he quite rightly played his cards close to his chest and good for him.

On another occasion we were joined one day by two men who as far as I was concerned were as equally obvious as the ringer had been what their station was in the world of birds/wildlife, and on this particular day they were in the business of egg theft if only they could find out where the HB were. I reckon these two thought John and I looked like a couple of dumbos little knowing that I'd sussed them out almost the instant they had arrived on the scene to talk to us, one of them in particular - who was the mouthpiece of the pair - had written across his forehead....'you can see what a nice guy I am, but what you don't realise is that we're looking for HB to steal the eggs'....these two creeps left no more the wiser than they had been thirty minute earlier, what they didn't know was that John and I didn't know where the HB's were either.

So....please be aware, the persecution of birds of prey and stealing of eggs of several bird species and Peregrine Falcon chicks as another example THRIVES AND LIVES ON IN THE 21st CENTURY. 

And finally....

Nuthatch. Gary Jones

This Nuthatch obligingly visited GJ's garden after he baited the bird table with some tasty seeds.  

PLEASE NOTE....Blogger has had some maintenance problems and yesterdays (Thursday) post 'More like March than May' which disappeared has now returned as a Friday post, but the three interesting comments to the post which I received have still to be restored.