 |
MANCHESTER BIRDING LINKS |
 |
The following web sites are amongst my favourite on the internet, for one reason or another.......
GENERAL BIRDING, UK:
BIRDNET- Providers of rare, scarce and local bird information around the UK, via pagers, mobile 'phones or land lines. A reputable, reliable and affordable service, check out their website for details.
SURFBIRDS- Never seen it before, then where have you been? Essential site for British birding and beyond with more than enough for rarity lovers.
BIRDFORUM- Want to know something about anything, however remotely associated with birds or birding? It's probably in here, although you should really be out birding rather than trawling through it's hundreds of pages.
BRITISH BIRDS RARITIES COMMITTEE- Essential site for rarity finders and for those who'd like to!
FYLDE BIRD CLUB- A great site, especially for those 'escaping' the county and heading towards this area of the north-west coast.
EAST LANCS ORNITHOLOGISTS- For all your birding needs in East Lancs, now complete with bird sightings forum, this is now the site to find out what's about just north of our border!
DEE ESTUARY BIRDS- Essential site for birding this excellent area of coastline.
PUNKBIRDER- Lucky chaps who live in Norfolk and don't appear to do much else other than go birding in probably the best birding county in the UK. An very amusing site (for my taste anyway!), actually including some good 'serious' birding material.
NATURE IN SHETLAND- See what they've got and wish you were there!
SENNEN COVE BIRDWATCHING- Covers the extreme south-west Cornwall area and essential for visiting birders with it's excellent coverage of local sightings. Believe it or not, probably my favourite place in all the world!
BIRDS IRELAND- Some great articles here, including good snippets of identification information.
IRISHBIRDING.COM- Same as above really!
RARE BREEDING BIRDS PANEL- On the surface not much to enthuse over here, but the archived 'Panel Reports' (as published annually in British Birds magazine) make for very interesting reading and are a great source of information.
SKILLS-BILLS- Greater Manchester birder and frenetic twitcher Tom McKinney's own site about his birding (and not so birding) antics. Easily one of the funniest sites on the web (if you like that sort of thing, which I do in and in my opinion it's one of the two funniest!), be warned, this site really is XXX rated, and anyone of an easily offended nature should stay away before you spontaneously combust on reading Tom's 'workman-like' dialect! You have been warned (so don't blame me!).
MENZIE BIRDING- Stephen Menzie' s excellent birding blog from around the north-west and way beyond.
SEAN GRAY BIRD IMAGES- Sean's site of his excellent bird photos, often encompassing Greater Manchester birds and well worth a look even if not!
UK BIRD OBSERVATORIES:
Quiet day? Nothing about? See what all those lucky buggers with a coastline and a bird observatory have got, also a good tool for predicting what we should be looking out for here or alternatively where to escape to tomorrow!
GENERAL BIRDING, WORLD:
HONG KONG BIRD WATCHING SOCIETY- Go straight to the photo gallery in the BBS section to drool over some of the best bird photos anywhere on the 'net, including mouth-watering images of plenty of megas you'd be very happy to find anywhere in the Western Palearctic.
OCEAN WANDERERS- Angus Wilson's great site, with loads of material on seabirds, waders and Yankee passerines.
ORIENTAL BIRD IMAGES- Just lots of nice images of oriental birds, many of which are Western Palearctic megas.
GULL SITES:
Not interested in Gulls? What the hell do you do all winter?
RUDY OFFEREINS- Fantastic Gull site with great images and very authorative content, and a nice chap too!
DICK NEWELL- Massive amount of extremely interesting stuff here from a very experienced guy, including much more than just gulls.
MARTIN REID- Mainly US site but plenty to keep you occupied for ages.
STEVE HAMPTON- Similar to Martin Reid's and equally essential.
WEST MIDLAND GULLS- Alan Dean's web site which has some very well presented information from a guy who really knows his stuff.
OTHER:
BBC WEATHER- Essential for pre-planning where to go birding and/or what species of bird you should be looking for.
EUROPE SURFACE PRESSURE CHARTS- Met office site, similar use as the BBC weather site.
The following links are all sites that may be of interest to anybody interested in wildlife or the countryside in Greater Manchester
www.actionfornature.co.uk - Trafford Nature Conservation Group's site
www.gmbiodiversity.org.uk - The Greater Manchester Biodiversity Action Plan
www.blackredstarts.org - The Black Redstart Biodiversity Action Plan