My Blog - Jeff Clarke

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.

It was a Golden Wedding celebration weekend for my Parents-in-law and I'd taken my wildlife camera gear more in hope than expectation. During a brief hiatus in proceedings I met up with Paul, my brother-in-law, cameras in hand, at Budby Common for a 2 hour sojourn. The light was poor and I thought I might not even press the shutter.

Even when there is nothing to see or photograph Budby is a fine place to walk. After an hour I thought that was all it would be, but the sound of crossbills caught my ear and I watched the flock land in some smallish Scot's Pines, just a couple of hundered metres away on the heath. Paul had never seen crossbill so I suggested we make our way to the pines and 'pish out' the crossbills and see if we could photograph them.

In recent days the Cheshire Mammal Group (CMaG) have begun  a series of surveys in search of a mouse. This mouse is feisty and seems to relish getting it's gnashers buried in a handlers digits. This mouse gets due respect. This mouse is the Yellow-necked Mouse.

Having spent almost a month exploring just a small part of New Zealands natural wealth it was time to head for home. However the final fling involved an early morning ferry ride across the Cook Strait and one more chance to enjoy those dainty Fairy Prions. Around 6.30am in the morning we departed the small town of Picton and headed up the Malborough Sounds. Many birds were evident as we steamed along including Fluttering Shearwaters and a few Little Blue Penguin. Before long we were clearing North Island and ploughing a furrow through a thick picket line of prions. Almost all the way to Wellington we were entertained royally by these delightful and fragile looking tubenoses. The calm and sunny conditions allowed me to reel of hundreds of ...

Duskies {yoogallery src=[/images/stories/blog/duskydolphins]} Swimming with the Hector's Dolphins in Akaroa had been truly euphoric, so I was keen to repeat the exercise with the famous Dusky Dolphins of Kaikoura. Adele and I joined an early morning excursion with Dolphin Encounter and before long we had found a large pod of Duskies. We plunged into a 1000ft of water, though as I was snorkeling without weights I could barely get more than a few feet below the surface due to the buoyancy of my wetsuit. Before long I was engulfed by dolphins. This was one of their first big pods of the year with over 300 dolphins around us. Barely a few seconds would go by when one or more were not fizzing around you, clicking and whistling as they went...