Permanent Tourist

by Mark Howells-Mead

Posts about birds

  • Starling in a fig tree

    Not a waste of fruit

    Neighbours who worry about fruit, and nature which gets there first.

  • Swallows on a telephone wire

    Last of the swallows

    Last of the swallows for this year, I suspect. I haven’t seen them around much this year at home, but there were dozens out yesterday, feeding their young before their long journey. (We have a perfectly-positioned telephone wire near our balcony, so it’s a great spot to watch and to photograph them.)

  • The swallows’ viewpoint

    Our regular swallow visitors have a preferred perch above the area around our house. And it’s just a few metres from our balcony.

  • Gwatt nature reserve, Thun

    Gwatt nature reserve, Thun

    I just came across a short film I made in January and posted to YouTube at the time. Filmed with my X100 and edited quickly in iMovie, it shows the publicly accessible lake-shore nature reserve at Gwatt, some fifteen minutes’ drive from home.

  • Pingoes in the Camargue

    Seeing wild flamingoes for the first time, in the south of France.

  • West Pier, Brighton

    A photo from 1998 of the ruined West Pier in Brighton, on the south coast of England.

  • Guillemots at Elegug Stacks

    Elegug Stacks are two limestone pillars standing freely, a short distance from the cliffs on the coastline of Pembrokeshire in south west Wales. Due to their inaccessibility, a multitude of birds are allowed to breed in comparative peace.