Chilterns Red Kites

After JL and I (eventually) located the drake Lesser Scaup at Draycote Water in Warwickshire on Sunday morning, and then failed to relocate an Aquatic Warbler, we headed back to London via the M40 and the apparently thriving population of Red Kites around Stokenchurch. We didn’t give it that long, and the light wasn’t ideal, but still got a few reasonable photos – see below. All of these were taken from the end of a cul-de-sac in a housing estate with kites wheeling around over people’s gardens… lucky folk!

I want to give the kites some proper attention with a return visit in a month or two, preferably on a sunny blue skied day… watch this space!

 

Canada: just a few Killer Whales…

Apologies to any eagle-eyed readers who’ve noticed the distinct lack of blog activity lately: I’ve been busy at work in the week (just look up Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Models if you’re struggling to get to sleep), and busy birding at the weekends (look up Zitting Cisticola at Pegwell if you want to see something only slightly more interesting!). UK Yearlist is now 296… hopefully a really good bird will double up as 300 for the year and 400 for the life list.

Anyway, the combination of a lovely bottle of Viognier and excellent free music courtesy of Spotify (check it out, highly recommended) has prompted me to post some more photos from Canada.

Not really much I can say about these: simply awesome, and worth every cent we paid to 5 Star Whale Watching for the experience. Click the link for their blog, if you want yet more photos!

Canada: the Icefields Parkway

After a hectic weekend birding (twitching up for the Lincs King Eider on Saturday, and then largely seawatching on Sunday - see JL's excellent account of a cracking day), I'm too tired to write very much here. Fortunately, the following pictures from the Banff-Jasper highway (AKA the Icefields Parkway) in the Canadian Rockies tell a much more impressive story than I ever could. In summary - go there, you won't regret it!

 

 Athabasca Falls

 

The lower reaches of the Athabasca Glacier, which feeds the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans.

  

  

  

All the rivers fed by glaciers were flowing a peculiar milky white colour in August

  

A real hardship to drive 240km of road like this...

  

Maligne Canyon

  

  

  

  

 The river just above Sunwapta Falls

 

 And, appropriately for the last photo, one of the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen.