We based ourselves out of Bedfordshire which is somewhere about 80km north of London and did a bit of local birding throughout the two weeks holiday.Keeping it local to my parents place, Ravensden, we managed to clock up some great birds.  My parents use feeders in their garden so it's quite easy to get a good list of seed-eaters within a few minutes of watching them.

Out and about in the village we spotted a Little Owl perching on the end of a dead branch.

At first glance, the owl appeared to be part of the tree, meaning he looked like a stump at the end of the branch, easily missed, but on closer inspection, we could see the eyes glaring back at us.

Little Owls were introduced to the UK from Europe in 1842 and have done well in setting up their own populations ever since.

They nest in tree holes, nesting boxes or small holes in old buildings and spend most of the day just perching out in the open.

Whether you can see them or not is a different story. While we watched him, he hopped from one branch to another to have his photo taken.  They are so cute and he seemed ok that we were there watching him.  If they become agitated, they'll start bobbing their heads around, but he just remained still watching us.

Another bird we saw fairly frequently was the Red-legged Partridge.  Why can't Malaysian partridges be so confiding?

The Red-legged is a relatively timid bird, but as there are so many of them around, and they tend to dwell amongst road-side verges that border fields, it's quite easy to spot them.

The Red-legged Partridge (also known as the French Partridge) was also introduced into the UK from Europe as a game species, but as with the Little Owl, it has done extremely well in establishing itself in the UK countryside.We did spot a pair of Grey Partridges (or English Partridge) along a place known locally as 'Lovers Lane', yep, you can do the math on why it's called that!  

What were we doing there?......er.....

While having afternoon tea in my parents garden, we witnessed a Eurasian Sparrowhawk zoom through chasing a bird, but it all happened so fast I couldn't work out what it's intended prey was.

On the 31st May, we headed over to Little Paxton, a small village north of our home base where they have some dis-used gravel pits which have subsequently been converted into a nature reserve.

Our trip there produced a few highlights, the first being a European Turtle-dove, which is a fairly rare sighting in UK.  

Second up was a Eurasian Hobby that flew over, and the third was a Common Nightingale.

The nightingale is an Old World Flycatcher and is often heard in certain places throughout the UK, but rarely seen, but we were lucky and patient enough to wait for him to come out of the bush. He has an impressive repertoire of calls, from warbles and trills of varying notes.

We heard that some twitchers had recently come over from Wales to see it at Paxton!I only managed to get a couple of shots of him, as we spent most of the time searching through our bins.

While we were busy watching the nightingale, a European Robin was begging for attention just above our heads. Non-stop calling, he just wanted someone to take a look, so I broke away from the Nightingale for a minute or two to satisfy him.

After walking around some of the lakes, we jumped in the car and headed to the northern tip of the reserve, only accessable at the moment through a village called Diddington.

The park have aquired more land from the quarry company and will be working throughout the coming months to make it part of the park.

It's a pretty good place as waders like to hang around there.

We saw some Dunlin in their breeding plumage, but unfortunately just too far to photograph.  Recently they had some Spoonbills passing through, which is also a bonus (just not for us).

The park is surrounded by fields, so you can see a few Raptors flying around, such as the Common Buzzard, Common Kestrel and the Eurasian Hobby.

Our final local birding trip was to a place just north of Bedford town to a pine forest known as Chicksands Woods.  

The smell of the forest was like opening an IKEA furniture pack, it smelt lovely. Plenty of Eurasian Chaffinch's flying around and chirping away.  

I was quite surprised to have a Hedge Accentor perched on a branch in front of us, as I've only ever seen them around gardens before.

The forest was alive with Eastern Gray Squirrels all scampering around the place.

These squirrels were introduced from North America a long time ago, and as they have no real natural predators in the UK, they have prospered and displaced the local species, the Red Squirrel.  Programs are in place to try and control the populations of the Gray so that the Red Squirrel's numbers can recover. Hope it works as the Red Squirrels are beautiful little chaps, too bad I've not seen one in many years.

We spotted two varieties of Thrush, both the Song and the Mistle Thrush.  Not so easy to distinguish from each other, but with photos it's a little easier.

Here's the Song Thrush seen way up high in the pine trees having collected spiders possibly to take back to chicks.

And here's the Mistle Thrush (poor photo).  You'll notice from the front, that the Song Thrush has spots that resemble up-side down hearts, while the Mistle Thrush has similar spots only down to the breast. Below that, the spots are round blobs.

The Mistle Thrush also has a grayer back than the Song Thrush. 

Just coming out of the forest we saw a blob atop a distant dead tree.  We drove along the road to get closer, then had to abandon the car and trek alongside a field before getting a close enough view to see what he was. 

A Red Kite!

Long ago in the 1870's, Red Kites were persecuted to the point of extinction in the UK but thanks to the efforts of conservationists, since 1989, birds from Germany, Spain and Sweden have been introduced, and it seems the populations are on the up, currently England now has a population of around 910 breeding pairs.

I was so pleased to have got a shot of a perched Kite.  We had spotted a single Kite flying over my parents back garden just a few days prior, but only a blurry sillhouette shot to show for it.

Birding in the Bedfordshire area was pretty rewarding.  It probably doesn't differ greatly to any other South East England rural area, so birding throughout much of rural england should prove equally as fruitful should you have the opportunity to visit.

Bird lists for the above places are below:

Ravensden, Bedfordshire

Little Paxton, Cambridgeshire

Chicksands, Bedfordshire

Click here to read our trip report for Farne Islands, Bempton Cliffs and Blacktoft Sands

Click here to read our trip report for Minsmere Nature Reserve