Ed Keeble

First trip off patch up the Suffolk coast for ooh i dunno how long this AM- here's at Chinese Water Deer and a Tundra Bean Goose sticking their heads up at same moment. #BirdArt

Not sure if taking dodgy record shots is genetic, but just got some nifty pics from my non-birding daughter of Buller's Shearwaters knocking a heart-shaped hole into a baitball.

flat calm once again on the Stour - GND in the reflection of the clocktower

Just to share the joy of a drake Smew on patch at Alton- the last one a few years ago had felt like a last chance to see already. Not the full set of white head plumes on this chap, but pearls of water on its back when it upped from dive. #BirdArt

keep going!

Great joy to have R N Grebe in the mighty Stour area this afternoon (ta @esbr-essex.bsky.social ) - here's a pencilling of its resting head shape. #BirdArt

Are able to send to his email? Ed

Bang on- there was a batch of orange rings a while ago that are prone to fading - I have passed it on to Pete

Gorgeous- they have that lovely smoooth look of real Waxwings

Still tiddling about with GND images from earlier in the week- a happy thing is that they have black stripes down the quills of their axillaries (armpit feath'rs) like the splayed slats of an Adirondack chair #BirdArt

That’s very kind of you!

Lovely Barn Owl asleep in the sun this morning with tail fanned and primaries resting on the deck #BirdArt

A wild Sunday PM ride through BOU 58. Adrenalin levels still subsiding after changing Eurasian Hoopoe to Common Hoopoe in the mighty Stour area collective list. Now for the grand re-ordering- looks like Ruddy Duck grabs top spot on all our lists, even if re-badged as Cat C6.

Not a field sketch that's for sure, but just pencilling out a top nice thing from the Stour today- wind lifting the nape of a Black-throated Diver enough to make a white crescent from the underlay. #BirdArt

Not sure if vid. works on repeat, but anyway this should be one of the juv GNDs on the Stour this week losing its rag with a fish way too big to swallow and hammering it with its beak. #BirdArt

Here's a backlit GND from the Stour earlier in the week. Beak open between dives. #BirdArt

Flat calm first thing- GC Grebe looking like its been tie-pinned on a swatch of Paul Smith fabric

wet out there

top edit on that photo!

It has taken a bit of legwork to get this GW Egret at Alton Water decoded (well done to Laurence Potter for tip-off that we had a bangled one there). Turns out it is from NE Poland, border with Lithuania. I've seen a couple of reports from Belarus, so fits the pattern. #UKBirding

Top detour thanks to Great Bustard Group on way back from some non-birdy doings down south- these two big boyz on Salisbury Plain standing tall in sluicing rain I guess so water doesn't puddle on their mighty backs #BirdArt

Too much time on wadery data entry at the mo, but just time to add a Turnstone bodyrocking a floating goose carcase to the ouevre.

Important to keep the rainbow list moving along. Greenshank, Barwit and Grey Plover added in one hit along the Stour this evening. Brent, Redshank and Knot just rainbow year ticks.

Bartail does seem to be #1 for doing this - we had a little thread on X on it a few years ago and there seemed to be a south coast one and a few more up the east coast, the Suffolk/Essex one still going last winter

We've got a pearly king of Grey Plover on the Stour this week- big round white tips to all its uppers and no sign of wear that I have seen yet, so pretty sure it is a bit of moulto madness. #Birdart

You might think the most exciting yellow rectangle of the autumn would be the glowing arseplaster of a Pallas's Warbler- but no- it has to be the flag on Knot VXY arriving a week early on the Stour for at least its twelfth consecutive season #UKbirding

Featuring a Desertas petrel that stunned scientists by chasing a tropical storm (see their incredible chase mapped here!), tiny nightingales that cross the Sahara twice a year, and Bewick's swans that have changed their stopovers and diet

Making the most of mild adversity- I’m grounded with a dinged back, but discover my walking stick doubles nice as a brush rest.#Birdart

Little rascals still busy this week- here one trying to swipe a mouse off the Kestrel, which foiled it by flipping onto the roof slope and holding the mouse out of sight. #BirdArt

That's very kind!