21-09-26 Monday - Pectoral Sandpiper, Lesser Yellowlegs, Shag

Temp 11°C to 24°C - a jolly nice day. Sunny and warm. Still til lunch then a light WNW/WSW wind later.

Shag

Lesser Yellowlegs

Pectoral Sandpiper

Glossy Ibis

Spotted Redshank

Greater Flamingo (escaped bird)

A quick bit about AI in bird photography. I am not a photographer, it is a real skill and we have many excellent photos shared with us. Whilst I expect this is not so new to many of you, I am catching up on AI a bit, and found it interesting and helpful to read eBird's help pages and policies on this here and here. AI is increasingly part of photo editing programs and can be useful. However, it is also very good at adding in detail to photos and often does not get it right, as it does a 'best guess' and ends up not being accurate. E.g it changes colours, bills and feather details. Sometimes it can do this without the photogapher knowing or catching the changes being made. I have certainly noticed this more on birding groups I am in on things like Facebook.  It does not seem to be a large problem locally but I  have had some recent messages to say it is perhaps creeping into a very small fraction of photos on this blog or our social media. We will look into this and decide what our policy will be- we are learning about this as we go. We continue to be grateful to those that send in or share photos and sincerely hope that you continue to do so. We do ask that any AI enhancing does not change or add false detail to your photos- I found the above links really helpful as to what eBird accepts and what it does not.

BRISTOL

Stoke Park:
14 Ring-necked Parakeet, 4 Swallow, 44 Meadow Pipit

SOUTH GLOUCESTERSHIRE

NorthwickWarth/Pilning Wetlands:
1 Ruff, 1 Greater Flamingo (escaped bird), 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker, 1 Kestrel

NORTH SOMERSET

Nailsea Moor:
1 Snipe, 1 Cattle Egret, 1 Little Owl, 1 Green Woodpecker, 1 Raven, 12 Starling, 8 Stonechat, 15 Linnet, 2 Reed Bunting

BELOW M4 & BANES

Wheatear, Marshfield (Les Williams)

Marshfield:
6 Stonechat, 4 Wheatear, 12 Yellowhammer

Burnett:

1 Red Kite

Chelwood:

1 Red Kite

RESERVOIRS

Lesser Yellowlegs CVL (Lee Gardiner)

Chew Valley Lake

Common Sandpiper, CVL (George Stacey)

Dam:

1 Common Sandpiper, 2 Buzzard

Buzzard CVL (George Stacey)

Woodford:
4 Pochard, 1 Shag (sometimes resting on Little Denny), 510 Cormorant

Herons Green:
1 Redshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, 10 Little Egret, 29 Great White Egret, 6 Cattle Egret, 10 Grey Heron

Stratford:
4 Ringed Plover, 2 Black-tailed Godwit, 2 Marsh Harrier

Kingfisher CVL (Ian Stapp)

Herriotts inc. Pool:
14 Egyptian Goose, 2 Water Rail, 25 Ringed Plover, 7 Black-tailed Godwit, 20+ Snipe, 7 Green Sandpiper, 1 Lesser Yellowlegs, 4 Ruff, 1 Pectoral Sandpiper, 2 Common Gull, 1 Glossy Ibis, 7 Little Egret, 14 Great White Egret, 6 Grey Heron, 1 Hobby

Water Rail CVL (Ian Stapp)

Reported by: Russell Barnett, Paul Bowerman, Ben Crabb, Chris Craig, Andy Davis, Lee Gardiner, Rupert Higgins, John Lewis, Jessica Killey, Rich Mielcarek, Darren Pearce, Tony Scott, George Stacey, Ian Stapp, Larry Sweetland, Caron Thornton-Trippit, Les Williams, Jack Wylson

blagdonlakebirds, opsbirding, severnsidebirds