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The first 4 days of the conservatory build

Posted on May 18, 2012 at 5:15 PM

Day 0

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

My best year ever. 5 out of 5 leagues I came top.

Posted on May 15, 2012 at 9:30 AM

Brown Fish Owls now showing daily

Posted on May 14, 2012 at 5:15 PM

http://www.vigotour.com/?Excursions:Brown_Fish_Owl

The Brown Fish Owls (5 pairs) are now showing daily on a boat tour. If anybody wants to charter a boat with me between 18th to 25th June 2012? Please let me know, I will be staying at a hotel in Kemer which only 2 and a quarter hour drive to the Owls. What a fantastic looking bird.

Things are going to change!

Posted on May 14, 2012 at 3:55 PM

Ok, a big decision has been made. In January we went to a garden centre and fell in love with Summer Houses. On average they cost between £700 to £2,000. Our love for them soon vanished when we found out most of the wood needs to be treated annually, I instantly preferred the more expensive option of a conservatory. Average cost is in the region of £20,000.

We ummed and arred for the last 5 months and tomorrow... the buiders finally arrive to construct a 5 metre by 3 metre one. No planning permission is needed and it should be finished in 4 weeks time. I should be able to get 3 metres closer to nature and I might even splash out and buy a new bird table.

Little gems without the gloss

Posted on May 13, 2012 at 4:00 PM

Top picture: 2 of the 17 Little Tern @ Pagham Harbour Sunday 13th May 2012

Middle picture: Baby Tawny Owl @ Church Norton Sunday 13th May 2012

Bottom picture: Tree Pipit in full song @ Old Lodge Sunday 13th May 2012

I managed to get up relatively early Sunday Morning. I made Coffee for Kim in bed and then had a bowl of Bran Flakes and Coffee and headed off to Weir Wood. On arrival there was no cars in the car park, loads of water, no exposed mud and very few water birds. I heard a Reed Warbler and within 5 minutes I headed over to Old Lodge.

The big decision now was whether I should wear my North Face Coat whilst walking around the nature reserve or go with just the T-Shirt on. I'm a wimp so I wore my coat. As soon as I got to Redstart corner (made up name, but its the place I see them every year) I heard a male singing, could'nt see it and then I encountered a female (160th) . Magic, in the distance I could hear a Tree Pipit (161st). I love the magical seer seer seer call of the Tree Pipit, it brings back very happy Child hood memories of seeing/hearing them at Tilgate Park near extremely large electric pylons. 30 minutes later no male so I decided to have a nibble at 5 year ticks on offer in the Pagham harbour area. The return diesel cost to there from Crawley is about £20, so going for 5 would work out £4 per year tick. Just about affordable to a poorish lad like me. Targets birds were Glossy Ibis (North Wall y/day), Spotted Flys (7 at Church Norton y/day), Little Terns (Pagham), Sandwich Terns (Pagham) and Turtle Dove (Marlpit Lane).

I arrived at North Wall around about 12:30pm and bumped into Chris Janman. He reckoned the Glossy Ibis flew off yesterday and thought I would be wasting my time looking for it in the Owl Copse area. Sadly he was right, but it was nice to meet Caroline French from Hampshire. She was hoping to see the Glossy Ibis as well. We searched together and we must have chatted for almost 2 hours. She spotted a Peregrine (162nd) flying West over the North Wall, which is a bird I rarely encounter near home. During this time I got a tweet from Martin Collinson confiming that the DNA of the Flamboro Fly is most likely to be a Pied Fly but he couldn't rule out Iberian Pied Fly (with current DNA knowlege). Anyroad it was a nice day out in Flamboro and Bempton, so I'm quite happy on adding a very unusually plumaged Pied Fly (159th) on my yearlist.

I then drove from North Wall to Church Norton. On the radio, all 10 Premiership matches just kicked off, and by the time I got to Church Norton Arsenal were loosing 2-1 to West Brom. Great time to turn the radio off and start birding. Had a quick shifty around the Church, no Spot Fly's. Maybe I need to cut my losses and look for the Terns. Just as I walked towards the sea...I bumped into Bob Lambert. He he was very excited about a showy Tawny Owl and took me to exact tree it was perched in. Incidentally this is the same wood that held the June 2002 Collared Fly. It's so nice when birders diseminate juicy little tit bits like this. I reckon this is the first time I've encountered a young Tawny Owl, despite hearing them on numerous occassions.

After a 25 minute walk I reached the harbour mouth. 17 Little Terns (163rd), 8 Sandwich Terns (164th) and 15 Whimbrel were noted at the harbour mouth. The views of the Little Terns were amazing, they made their buzzy call over my head and started fishing in the sea and all very quickly made their way back and landed on the shingle embankment. I got back to the car at 5:30pm and then checked the Football results. Arsenal won and importantly finished 3rd. Spurs finished 4th (oh dear, what a shame). This means two sporting bets with my work colleagues should pay me £20. Man City won the league for the 2nd time in my Lifetime. Not much of a surprise considering they've spent the most cash on transfers/wages than any other football club in football history. I wonder if it will take 44 years to win the league again...I could then be 88 years old!

I've never been to Marlpit Lane before, so the Sat Nav assisted. No sign or sound of Turtle Doves but I did hear a Nightingale as I left the lane.

All in all, great day out and I can't really see my year list getting much bigger now...unless of course a good tick turns up on say a Scottish Island and I get a package of nice birds along the way.

Don't worry Pugsy is ok

Posted on May 7, 2012 at 3:45 PM

Today Rusper held its May day. One of the activities was to throw a bear from Rusper Church. So Georgie brought along Pugsy Bear .....the officials attached a parachute.... and yes you be delighted to know Georgie heroically caught Pugsby.

At 2pm, I dropped Georgie off at the mother-in-laws and I went birding. First stop was Warnham. 100's of Hirrundines (40+ Sand Martins, Swallows, House Martins & Swifts) and a Common Whitethroat were the best bits. No sign of Spotted Fly but I did get notification about the Crested Lark at Dungeness before the Mega alert went off. This was put out immediately on @PremiershipClub and my followers had a 10 minute head start....Also thanks to Jake for the tip off. By the way its only cost a £1 to wander around the small nature reserve and its got a really nice cafe. I fuelled up with a £1.50 bag of Kettle crisps and a 60p Mars bar before my 20 minute onward journey to Pulborough.

Pulborough didn't disappoint. Garden Warbler and Lesser Whitethroat were noted near Wiggonholt Church. On the reserve I heard 4 Nightingale (saw 1 from Hangar), 1 Common Sand (West Mead Hide), 1 Sedge Warbler (Nettley's Hide), Cuckoo (Heard), loads of hirrundines. Didn't manage see the elusive Garganey or the Egyptian Geese.

Black-winged Stilts win my vote

Posted on May 6, 2012 at 1:55 PM

Top picture 2 Black-winged Stilts & Bottom picture Spotted Redshank & 2 Avocet All at @ Elmley, Kent 6th May 2012

Ater seeing the Wood Warbler and nearby Buchan Park on Friday evening I was really in the mood for bagging some year ticks today. The options were Weir Wood & Ashdown Forest, Pulborough Brooks or Elmley. Kim went shopping at 10am and I babysat Georgie to Kims return. Kim got back just before midday and that was cue for a bit of birding. The weather was crap, overcast and fine rain and the chances of seeing lots of Warbler today ruled out the first 2 locations. Elmley is currently holding 4 Black-winged Stilts at the South Fleet hide, and this is a good 1,5 mile walk from the visitor centre. Perfect for unfit office bod like me.

The walk to South Fleet Hide provided views of Common Terns, 30 Whimbrel (feeding in the lush green fields), 20+ Swifts, House Martin, quick flashes of Reed Warbler darting between the reeds, 5+ Common Terns and once I got in the hide 2 of the 4 Black-winged Stilts were on view and a little bit distant to tell the truth. I never managed to see the other 2 despite spending welll over an hour in the hide. Other good birds seen during my stay included:- Little Stint, Spoonbill (flew accross reserve and landed in an out of view part of the reserve), 2 Spotted Redshank, 3 Yellow Wagtails, BarWit, loads of BlackWits On the walk back to the car I spotted 2 Short-eared Owls, more quick flashes of Reed Warblers, 40+ Whimbrel flying about. Got home about 6:15pm to a delicious Roast Dinner waiting for me on the table. Formitable.

The Premiership has almost landed

Posted on May 5, 2012 at 5:40 PM

I've been a proud owner of a Birding Website since 2004. I first had Freeserve, then Orange and now Webs. I've been with Webs quite a few years now and what is on here has taken a lot of effort to produce. My domain has always been too long to remember and I've now splashed the cash and bought myself a domain name. It will take 3 days to
become live and the new address will be www.premiershipclub.com

I seem to have a fascination with the word Premiership and have decided to adopt it on Twitter and for Listers who have seen 500 wild birds in Britain & Ireland.

I have 2 twitter accounts:-

@PremiershipClub (I will be using for the twitching scene and retweeting car, boat & plane adverts)

@garrybagnell (will be used for general birding and whatever floats my boat, I will generally followback birders on this account)

Everytime a mention appears on @PremiershipClub, my phone will get a beep. This will then allow me to retweet any Twitching Adverts. The message can be tweeted to my current 157 followers. Anyone fancying taking up an advert can then contact the advertiser directly. The @PremiershipClub has then served its purpose.

Over the coming years I'm hoping that planes charters and boats charters will be tweeted. etc The @PremerishipClub will encourage birders/twitchers to make new friends and ultimately see more birds

My sidebar will hold at least 50 mentioned tweets to @PremiershipClub. This will enable non-twitter users to take up adverts and if anybody wants to join twitter you only need access to a computer and have an email address. Having a Smart Phone is not essential but useful if you want to know what is happening in the Birding scene.

Hopefull using twitter for lifts will be a success and if not I will take it down, so please spread the news and get the followers up to the 1000 mark.

If you have any good experiences from using the @PremiershipClub please let me know by email and maybe I can post them on my blog page.

Thanks for reading.

Garry Bagnell

Possbile Atlas Fly and a visit to Bempton

Posted on May 2, 2012 at 7:15 PM

Possible Atlas Pied Flycatcher @ Flamboro South Landing 2nd May 2012

A quick visit to Bempton R.S.P.B. at 4:30pm @ Wednesday 2nd May 2012 yielded loads of Tree Sparrows at the information centre and car park, Gannets, Guillemots, Razorbills & Puffin

Hoopoe and Garry Bagnell gets mentioned in local papers

Posted on April 27, 2012 at 6:10 PM

http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Birdwatchers-aflutter-exotic-visitor-appears/story-15933405-detail/story.html

Welcome to my website

My Name is Garry Bagnell. I am 44 years old and I absolutely love watching Birds.

My main birding achievement was being featured in the hit BBC-4 documentary "Twitchers-A very British Obsession". It was broadcast 9 times and I loved the whole experience.

I do keep THREE Bird lists. The list I am most passionate about is my COMBINED BRITISH & IRELAND LIST. My combined WEST & EAST SUSSEX LIST brings gives me a similar pleasure and can be found on the BUBO website. European family holidays have led me to keeping my third list, which is my WESTERN PALEARCTIC LIST. This list is kept on the NETFUGL website.

My website also contains a Blog, Twitching write ups, British & Irish Rare Birds Stats, list of members & lists of 2 regular travelling companions, Tweets on my TITBITS page and Jokes

Also if you need to contact me my phone number is 07789 765163 or alternatively email me on garrybagnell35@googlemail.com

"If you want to be in the premiership...you don't need to kick a ball, drive a fast sports car or have a big breasted girl to keep you warm at night..but you're going to need to spend ten thousand pounds on travel....devote ten years of your life to twitching birds and be able to go at the drop of the hat...and once you've ticked your 500th bird....get a new T-shirt and and don't forget to buy something nice for you missus, like a new stairs carpet?..."

Garry Bagnell 31st January 2011

= BUBO Listing www.bubo.org

Click on the above badge to follow the @PremiershipClub . The place to advertise Car Lift spaces, plane & boat charters. Remember you don't need a smart phone to join twitter. All you need is an email address.

Summary of my Birding Life

1977 - Age 10 - Started watching birds in my parents garden, then went to local parks/ woodland. Become a YOC member. Went to the Crawley & Horsham RSPB group indoor meetings. They organised monthly outings, went on a few car & coach trips in the local area.

1981 - During my many bird watching trips I went to Arundel W.W.T. for a day’s bird watching with Mushaq Ahmed. He pointed out Peter Scott to me. I went over to chat to him and he kindly singed my bird book I had on me. On the 26th July I went to Gatwick Airport with a school friend called Martin Arter. I bought a Civil Aircraft Marking Book (CAM) and I spent the rest of the day ticking off planes in my CAM. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to give up Bird watching as Plane Spotting was going to occupy a lot of my spare time.

1989 - I remember watching the news and seeing lots of birdwatchers descending on Maidstone, Kent for a Golden-winged Warbler. I was thinking about going for it, but sadly never did. So I suppose this is now, my most sought after bird for my British Isles List. Will we ever get another chance?!

1990 - Bought a house with a girlfriend.

1992 - Discovered Birdline, and had another attempt at Birdwatching/Twitching. Restricted my Birding watching/Twitching to the Southeast of Britain. I also joined the local Crawley & Horsham R.S.P.B. group as treasurer. (Shame nobody mentioned the long staying '93 Blackpoll Warbler at Bewl to me, but the R.S.P.B. members I use to chat with weren't major twitchers).

1997 - Got married for the first time.

1998 - I resigned from the post of Crawley & Horsham R.S.P.B Group Treasurer after a 6 year period. I decided to Join two chess clubs:- Crawley & Coulsdon.

1999 - Whilst working at National Grid on a year’s contract, I met Neil Howes and he showed me his Nationwide Birding Notebook. I was amazed at how many birds Neil had seen and how far he travels to see them. It made me think if I should get back into Birding/Twitching and give up the Plane Spotting. For the time being I decided to juggle both hobbies. I went to Scillies for the first time (absolutely loved it) and during my 3 day stay I found a Richard's Pipit, Ortolan Bunting (very brief view) and had my first conversation with Lee Evans. My Dad died of cancer during the year, so my wife and I decided to move in with mum and and help her out financially.

2000 - Early part of the year, Lee Evans showed me Lady Amerherst Pheasant's in Bedfordshire and he gave me a UK400 club bird checklist and names of all the birders that had seen over 400 birds in Britain (Approximately 720 then). I then decided I would like to get my name on the list. To achieve this I had to make some big changes to my life. This included giving up Plane Spotting (a hobby I had for 19 years), smoking (something I did for 17 years), leave my wife (our 10 year relationship at this stage was so bad, that I finishing it was the only option) and walk away from a house that I had paid 9 years’ worth of mortgage & endowment payments on, all for £nothing.

2001 - Had my first long distant dip. We chartered a plane for Thick-billed Warbler on Shetland. We didn't leave Inverness Aiport as bird was gone.

2002 - I was given a UK400 Club certificate for seeing 400 birds in Britain (Lesser Sand Plover @ Rimac). I met Kim in June and decided to give up playing competitive Chess as it was not fair to Birdwatch and spend weekends playing in Chess Tournaments. During my 4 year Chess career, I achieved a chess grade of 87 (BCF) and it was still rising. I also played Chess for Sussex in the U125(BCF) division. I also got 2nd and 3rd position in some Chess tournaments.

2003 - Got married for the 2nd time (see picture of my wife Kim below). Started to twitch Ireland...don't mention the 2000 Blue-winged Warbler that now really hurts.

2004 - My daughter "Georgie" was born. New British Birds were becoming less and less frequent, so I turned my attention to local birdwatching, which started by listing the bird species I see at Weir Wood Reservoir.

2005 - Got my second UK400 Club certificate, this time for seeing 450 birds in Britain (Barrow's Goldeneye @ Ythan Estuary). Sadly this year on 3rd March a very good friend of mine died, his name was James Havers. He died at the age of 39, whilst eating a meal at Gatwick Airport with Birding friend Andrew Bashford. James was an exceptional good birdwatcher who spent much of his short life doing bird survey work in the Crawley and Horsham area. He took me to see many scarce breeding birds he had found in the region, and he also showed me a wintering Little Bunting found in Ifield Church, Crawley '94.

2008 - Started playing darts at the Fountain Pub in Roffey.

2009 - I formed a Darts Team at the White Knight in Crawley and I decided to stop playing at the Fountain. On the 2nd August my Mother sadly died from Cancer at St. Catherines Hospice. The 6th September my family & I left Rusper and moved into my Mum's house. Since then we have spent £40k on house improvements. During the year I was selected to be filmed for a BBC4 documentary called Twitchers- A very British tradition. (Should be televised on 3rd November 2010).

2010 - Achieved two of my short term targets this year. I got my 300th (uk400) bird for Sussex (Red-footed Falcon @ 20th June) (S.2) and my 500th (uk400) British & Irish tick (House Crow @14th Sep Cobh, Co. Cork) (S.1). BBC-4 showed Twitchers: A very British Obsession on the 1st November