A Slight Interlude!!...

Was planning a jaunt out birding yesterday, with maybe Llanfairfechan at the top of the list of 'Where To Go'... Possibly the closest 'good' seawatching spot!! And I love seawatching & aint done any in over a year!! And Llanfairfechan is an excellent spot for Red-throated & Great Northern Diver, Red-breasted Merganser's, Common Scoter's and maybe an Eider, or an Arctic Skua or something even better?... But the early morning snow scuppered that plan!! And today?... Nah! Saturday's aint a good day, roads are way too busy etc... & I hate queues of traffic ~ road rage imminent!!

And I was sat here thinking about a converstaion I had on the parade yesterday with a fellow Bayston Hillite, who also has an interest in things avian, and he asked me 'what's the rarest bird you've seen?'... To which my answer was very easy ~ Long-billed Murellet!! What a bird that was!!... And maybe the biggest twitch I went on!! He than asked me a rather trickier question to answer... 'What's your favourite bird?'....
Hmmm, now this is tricky, as trying to name your favourite film or favourite song is tricky, as it greatly depends on your mood etc... A bird that I love in as much as if I had to be a bird I would want to be this, is a Peregrine Falcon!!! But, when your birding at a local pool or scrape, or at the coast or on mudflats... the last bird you want to see is one of these as they disturb everything & generally all the good birds fly off!!... So, sadly, no Peregrine doesn't make the top spot!

This is moi, holding an adult male Peregrine I found exhausted on Unit 2 Turbine at work. After being given some fluids & allowed to cool off, I successfully released the bird shortly after on the turbine house lawn & watched this awesome bird fly off over the cooling towers!! The Peregrine ~ the fastest animal on the planet!!!
So, still left with the same quandry! Maybe easier if I pin down a family group? Well, I love waders, always great to arrive at VP & there on the far mud patch is a wader scurrying around... I've been fortunate enough to find a few decent Shropshire waders ~ Sanderling, Bar-tailed Godwit & best off all a Pectoral Sandpiper!! But generally speaking waders are pretty much fairly unstriking in appearance with no amazing call to boost it along the rankings either... (take for example Cetti's Warbler, a dull, skullking brown bird, but it has the best call ever to make up for this...)
So, very sadly no wader gets the top spot, even though I love them all!! How about owl's then? Wow!! How awesome are owl's? Everyone loves owls! From the ghostly Barn Owl, to the most recognised 'twit-too-woo' Tawny Owl, the cute Little Owl, the spectacular Snowy Owl & my personal favourite the Short-eared Owl!! (NB: My birding mate Jim Almond took the greatest picture of a hunting SEO last year on Whixall Moss in twilight, it is the most atmospheric & haunting pic I've seen of this bird ~ so Jim, just wanted to say I love that pic mate!!)...
BUT!! As owl's are so popular I feel just like it's cheating a bit to pick one as my all time favourite, so very sadly I'm letting owl's go!!...
I then thought about the 'aaaah' factor!! Cuteness is always a winner... So, what is it? A Wren (my Mum's fave), Goldcrest? Firecrest maybe? How about a stunning Pallas's Warbler? ... Been lucky enough to see 3 of these!! But no... There is one bird that wins the cute stakes hands down in my opinion... Ladies & Gentlemen I give you the Northern Long-tailed Tit!!!

Once brilliantly described as 'snowballs on sticks', here is the fantastically cute Northern Long-tailed Tit!!...
But I aint after cuteness for my top slot!! So, farewell NL-tT!!... But does it have to be a bird I've seen? It would help! But even though I haven't seen a massive number of species of bird (less than 400 in the world sadly!) it is still extremely hard to pick my all-time favourite? The Sooty Tern at Angelsey was amazing (my best day birding too, with Big V & the Cheshire lads!!)... Also on Angelsey was the stunning Green Heron I went too see with a few of the TSB lads!!... Also when I went to Florida I saw a trully stunning Reddish Egret!!
But then again I saw so many great birds in America.... Anhinga was another I can remember being so chuffed to see... But then again, I didn't see Eastern Meadowlark, which I was desperate to see. And then there's all the American warblers which are mindblowing in their spectacular array off plumage colouration!! So, that in mind, I aint going for a bird on stunning plumage colours as there are simply way too many of them!!!...

So... What's it going to be? Having ruled out so many general area's of bird species I have decided on one! A bird that I haven't seen!! Also, for impressiveness I am going down the raptor route, just love birds of prey (always loved animals that hunt & have that 'wow' factor about them, this is probably why I have such a facination with keeping snakes & tarantula's!!)... Also, it needs to be rare, as I have a passion for rare birds!! Also, it needs to be a bird that is extremely difficult to see, even where it lives!!...
So all that in mind I have made my decision... My all time favourite bird!! My I introduce the awesomely spectacular HARPY EAGLE!!!!....

The Harpy Eagle ladies & gents is found in the Americas & lives in rainforest, the Amazon Basin & the likes... Despite it's enormous size it is very difficult to see as it hunts in the tree canopy. I remember watching Steve Backinshall on Deadly 60 trying to film one of these at a nest site & despite knowing where the nest was they had enormous difficulty in filming one of these!!... It is a huge eagle with the strongest talons of any raptor, capable of puncturing the skull of an adult monkey ~ Whoa!!..
Also, & very sadly, it is also now extremely rare due to destruction of its nest sites due to deforestation!
So, the Harpy Eagle, the full bag! Awesome, rare, difficult to see, amazing plumage... And a bird I can only ever dream of seeing in the wild!! But that is one of my ambitions, to go & see one of these birds in its natural habitat!! So, maybe one day in the future I'll achieve my dream of seeing my dream bird!!
Cheers all, J.