Estonia success!

So, another great trip in Estonia completed. The country is a great place for birds and birders. Special birds we saw in the coastal, forest and bog habitats include rafts of Long-tailed Duck, 1000s of geese, daily White-tailed Eagles, drumming Black and White-backed Woodpeckers, a superb Ural Owl, 3 Hazel Grouse, Great Snipe, Citrine Wagtail, and Slavonian Grebe and Ruff in breeding plumage. 

Green Hairstreak

My recent trip to Croatia was also excellent for butterflies. On sunny days we came across several great species whilst birding. Here is a Green Hairstreak from the Paklenica NP. 

Croatia: Skradinski buk

The stepped, waterfalls at Skradinski Buk in the Krka NP are always impressive, but were full of water this year.

Back From Croatia

Another successful tour in Croatia completed! I will post a few photos in the coming days. Great birds seen were Rock Partridge, Rock Nuthatch, Rock Bunting, Scops Owl, Ferruginous Duck, Middle Spotted Woodpecker at the nest, as many Wrynecks as you wanted and double-figure White-tailed Eagles!

Another to whet the appetite...

I have spent most of this week going through the galleys of the Black Woodpecker book. This is not the most enjoyable part of the process, but is a crucial one, those typos need to be dealt with! Anyway, next week I will be in the field again, with a group in Croatia, I will try to get on-line and blog from there. In the meantime here is another sketch from the book, to whet the appetite...  

Galley Proofs and All That

I am now going through the galleys of my Black Woodpecker book... layout and design looks good. Nice sketches by Szabolcs, like this one, introduce each chapter... 

Peanuts

Some of the local Great Tits Parus major are still coming to the peanuts.