Bird ID for beginners

It feels as though summer is here and as a new member of the RSPB I thought I’d make use of my membership and attend some of the ‘courses’ at Ynyshir, our local RSPB reserve.

Today’s course was ‘Bird Identification for Beginners’ run by Caroline. My bird ID isn’t bad but you can always learn something from such things so I went along. Also on the ‘course’ was Diane. Bascially we wandered around the reserve in the sunshine, with Caroline giving us some of her expert knowledge. She showed us not only on where to find certain birds but also helped with the ID of them.

It was actually really good. I was able to identify everything that we saw, but with Caroline helping us to look in the right places and without Morgan in tow I was able to see much more than I usually would.

We started off with some obvious birds on the feeders by the visitor centre:

• Chaffinches
• Greenfinches
• Blue Tits
• Great Tits
• Coal Tits
• Goldfinch
• Goldcrest

We then moved off into the woodland where we saw:

• Redstart
• Willow Warbler
• Long-tailed Tit
• Robin
• Wren
• Treecreeper
• Nuthatch
• Chiff Chaff
• Pied Flycatcher
• Blackbird
• Mistle Thrush

We then went down to the estuary hide where we could see:

• Canada Geese
• Little Egret
• Herring Gull
• Great Black-backed Gull
• Redshank
• Shelduck
• Moorhen
• Oyster Catcher
• Grey Heron

and on the way there a couple of

• Reed Bunting

Not a bad selection of birds in less than a couple of hours and some that I certainly wouldn’t have seen had I been on my own. I need to do that more often.

I still haven’t quite got the hang on getting pin sharp photos with my longest lens. At 300mm it isn’t really long enough for bird photography either and hand holding it without image stabilisation isn’t easy, but I’ll get there. What I really need is a day out in the hills or along the estuary dedicated to photography so that I can get closer to the action. Having Morgan in tow really isn’t conducive to getting close to wildlife!

Red Kite

Red kite

Red Kites

Like people all over the country, we made the most of the lovely winter weather and went for a walk on New Years Day. Nothing too adventurous as we had Morgan and ‘Granny’ with us so we just had a little stroll around the Ynyshir Nature Reserve. There were lots of Canada Geese on around and a few other birds too, and the snow topped hills made a lovely backdrop.

Dyfi Estuary and Snow capped hills