Monday 10 May 2010

Crex Crex!

Friday 7th - Sunday 8th May 2010 was spent in the company of lifelong birding buddies Mark, John B and cousin Rob. We had chosen to spend time on Mull and Iona as part of a proposed 10 year birding project where each of us would meet somewhere as a group in the UK to attempt an entire "10 year trip" target of 200 species.

What a splendid choice Mull and Iona prove to be!


Saturday morning was spent on Iona, where after three hours two corncrake finally emerged from cover. Fantastic! I'd never heard corncrake calling before (having only seen a sorry-state bird on Scilly a few years back) and it was a magic experience - how a bird can be so close and remain completely hidden from view beat us all. In total a minimum of nine birds were heard/seen. And with a supporting cast of rock dove, hooded crow, sedge warbler and whinchat we were quite happy with our trip start.

More about Mull soon...

5 comments:

Unknown said...

what a beaut!, I'm still yet to see or here one.

James said...

Cracking shot of it too!

Ipin said...

Looking forward to seeing more of Mull - one of my favourite places in the world!

Birding about Northumberland said...

Fab photo
Michelle

Ghost of Stringer said...

One of my best UK birding experiences hearing and seeing those corncrakes on Iona.

We went early, when they were just arriving, so the iris cover was low, but they were still very difficult to see..... A magical bird !

PS - used to have white-tailed tropicbird nesting in a tree stump next to my house, they're bloody vicious !!.... Sorry, couldn't resist saying that !! Your pic brought back some nice memories.....