Latest from Bastion

[giles]

I have managed to get down to the WWS most afternoons whilst out running. The black winged stilt is regularly there. No sign of the Hoopoe over the last two weeks though. There’s still a lot of work going on and it looks like the new runway is going to go straight over the site as it looks like they are going to tunnel the water through a culvert.

Yesterday I acquired a camera on loan with a 200mm lens and a x2 convertor, so it was up early this morning to see what I could snap. Fridays are a good day to go down as it is their holy day out here (like our Sundays) so a lot of the workers are not around to disrupt the birds. I was greeted by a great egret flying off as I arrived, then good shows of bay backed and long tailed shrikes. Plenty of warblers around in the reeds and a single citrine wagtail which I have not seen around over the last week.

A number of good photos were taken which I have emailed back to Andy to upload to the gallery so it’s worth a regular check to see if the page has been updated. Finding it difficult to ID a few of the birds particularly the warblers and what looks like a species of tit, which I can’t find in the guide out here. Any suggestions on ID’s would be greatly appreciated. Why not make your way to the gallery and have a stab....

[wot-no-birds]

The latest photos can now be seen in the Gallery http://www.aos-uk.com/gallery.html under Afghanistan 2010.