A SELECTION

It’s been a while since my last post so I’m guessing that it’s about time I did another one?


Here’s a selection of images taken on my recent wanderings.



Female BLACKBIRD not black at all but, in the right light, showing subtle shades of brown.


A GREY HERON not looking too happy on a frosty cold morning.


Greylag Geese on final approach.


Immature Herring Gull  As I still find the ageing of gulls beyond me I’ve labelled this one as immature!

 
A COOT no doubt on it’s way to a fight somewhere?


The JAY, with it’s stunning markings and colourful plumage, is one of my favourite birds to see.


And another.


A female KESTREL with the sun on her back.


Not an ugly duckling but an already elegant and graceful juvenile MUTE SWAN.


A STARLING captured in my garden in the late afternoon light showing off it’s beautiful plumage.


A WIGEON flyover.


And finally……


What am I…..

A CANALAG or maybe a LAGCANA?



And….


Barry the BLACK-HEADED GULL who’s regretting listening to all his pals when they assured him that doing a barrel roll was easy peasy lemon squeezy.

A Sunny Sunday Outing

Although the title of this post sounds good it doesn’t quite tell the entire story, let me explain…..Last Saturday I received an email from Keith inviting me to join him on Sunday for our first big outing of the year to the RSPB  Frampton Marsh reserve in Lincolnshire and, of course, I didn’t need asking twice!   A check on the weather forecast on Saturday evening didn’t make for good reading.. it was predicting frost and freezing fog for most of the day on Sunday!!
As is usual with our outings we always like to make an early start….so it was up at 4.30am (all bright eyed and bushy tailed!!) a quick check out of the window confirmed that the weather guessers had got it right again….thick fog and, for the short distance that I could see, everything covered in a liberal coating of white icing….lovely?
So, with warm clothes, hat, cloves  and camera gear checked and sorted…and the car de-iced!!  I set off for the frosty/foggy 30min. drive to Keith’s.  After a quick chat and the transfer of all my stuff over to Keith’s car it was just after 6am when we began our journey…into the unknown..fog!   As is usual Keith did a splendid job of getting us safely to our destination and amazingly, after a two hour drive in varying levels of fog and ice, just as we arrived the fog disappeared and the sun started to rise into what would turn out to be, for most of the day, a clear blue sky!  Although the sun was shining it stayed frosty all day, with a high of only 4°.


Keith watching the birds while topping up his tan!!

Unfortunately most of the birds were concentrated in the distant unfrozen areas of water and so remaining too far away for any decent photographs. However, I did manage a few flight shots…


Mute Swans making an early morning flight.


Dark-bellied Brent Goose..there were hundreds of these on the reserve with large skeins constantly flying overhead.


Curlew…lots of these about too, feeding on the wet grassland.


In total we spent 5+ hours exploring the reserve in the sunshine (and cold!) and saw around 50 different species of birds including large flocks of Wigeon, Golden Plover and Lapwing.

And the strange thing?…about three miles down the road on the return trip home, the sun disappeared and it became dark and dingy as we were once again enveloped (all the way home!) by….FOG!!

All in all an enjoyable (sunny) Sunday outing.

IT’S ABOUT TIME…..

….This is my first post since the start of the year and I guess most of you will have now fully recovered from all the excesses and celebrations and, despite all the rain, be well into the delights and discoveries of 2014, it certainly seems that way when reading all of your excellent posts.
The main reason that I’ve not done a post till now is due to a large dose of apathy brought on by starting the year off with a mega cold/flu(?) that lasted from Boxing day through the most of the first three weeks of January. Then for the last couple of weeks it’s been a matter of finding the time, there seems to have been lots of those little important jobs that couldn’t be left any longer and needed to be done.  The third reason/excuse is that, although I’ve been out and about on a few occasions (most times with Keith), I’ve not managed to take many decent photographs.

So, after all of the excuses here’s a few almost half decent images!

This first one was taken on New Years Day when Keith and I, after visiting RSPB Titchwell in Norfolk, went to the nearby Holkham Nature Reserve. The day day had turned cold and wet with a steady downpour, it wasn’t doing my cold any good!  Little did we expect to find this many people out in the cold and the rain, the road is about a mile long, there were so many cars and people that we had difficulty finding anywhere to park the car!

What’s it like in the Summer??

A few flight shots…


Mute Swan  RSPB Frampton Marsh Lincolnshire - 2nd.January


Cormorant  Caldecotte Lake Buckinghamshire – 23rd. January


Male Pochard  WWT Welney Norfolk – 27th. January



Mallard WWT Welney Norfolk - 27th. January



Lapwing RSPB Frampton  Lincolnshire – 3rd. February


Part of a large flock of Black-tailed Godwit  RSPB Frampton – 3rd. February

A DAY OUT WITH THE BOYS

Wednesday 13th. November 2013

Another early start on what was going to be a very enjoyable day of idle banter and relaxed bird watching in the company of two like minded friends.
It was dark and cold, with a clear sky and a touch of  frost, when I arrived at Keith’s at just past 5am.  We soon packed all the gear into his car and set off on our two hour journey to meet up with Adrian at the RSPB’s Freiston Shore reserve near Boston in Lincolnshire, where the Pilgrim Fathers set sail from…so the sign said!! Adrian was already there to meet us when we arrived at just past 7am. After a cup of tea and a chinwag while watching the sun rise, over the bird filled lagoon, into a cloudless blue sky we were ready to go and explore the reserve.



A Mute Swan, bathed in the early morning sunshine, takes it’s first flight of the day.



Unfortunately as we walked around the side of the lagoon to the hide the majority of the birds decided that the best place to be was over on the side that was furthest away from us! There were large flocks of Dark-Bellied Brent Geese noisily flying overhead on their way to feed out in the meadows and on the salt marsh. There was also very large flocks of Golden Plover that frequently took to the air and gave a golden shimmering display as they whirled around in the sunshine, sometimes completely obscuring the view.



We were soon up onto the sea bank and the start of our 3 mile circular walk around the ‘wetland trail’ with an excursion (a good mile round trip!) to the Cut End bird hide.

Adrian was all trussed up and loaded down with Bertha while Keith was contemplating a visit to the local supermarket to do his weekly shop!!



This was the first outing for Keith’s (shopping)trolley but he took all the ribbing and less than flattering remarks in good faith and we were more than grateful for it in the end, well up to a point!…more later.

Not many mountains around here!



Greylag Geese practicing their formation flying.



They tried to drag us in, but we managed to keep our freedom…just!



Eventually our destination is in sight…Cut End Hide.



Adrian decided to use the ungainly method of entry…we just used the gate!



Now this is where Keith’s trolley came into it’s own as he started to unpack coffee, soup and cheese rolls. It was a good idea after all….well maybe?…more later!

As we sat for a well earned rest and refreshment we took in the (flat!) view over The Wash.



Whilst sitting and taking in the pleasant sunshine I suddenly heard a melancholy sort of wailing sound, my first thought when I looked up and saw the long flowing locks was…mermaid!…but no! it was only Keith, who had been exploring and was just cursing the fact that he had stepped into some rather deep and smelly mud!

Mermaid?



Alf kept a keen eye out for any rarities that might have put in an appearance.



With well over half the distance of our walk completed it was now that Keith’s trolley, or it could just have been Keith, had a bit of a poor showing!
“Would anyone like an apple?” was the question, as we sat on a bench for another short rest…after much rummaging, muttering and a partial unloading of the said trolley the next refrain to greet our ears was  “o f*** it, I’ve left them in the car”….It was a good job that both me and Adrian had turned down the offer of an apple….we weren’t too disappointed!

There were a lot of ‘watchers’ along the route.



I wonder if I could get a fringe like that?

As I mentioned earlier there were a lot of Dark-Bellied Brent Geese around but uncannily they seemed always to be on the furthest side of the reserve to us…apart from this one, who we called Billy no mates!



Our trek was now coming to and end and we were soon back at the car park where Adrian again did the honours with the tea and coffee. As luck would have it amongst the Mallard the Wigeon and the sheep that were feeding on the grass in front of the lagoon there was a good number of Redshank and Black-Tailed Godwits, with possibly a few Bar-Tailed Godwits mixed in!

Black-Tailed Godwit







Grey Plover.



Is this a Barwit or a Blackwit?




It was soon time to make tracks for home and after a brief reflection on how good the day had been we said farewell to Adrian and wished him all the best until the next we meet up, most probably, in the new year.

It was a great day with good company…we put the world to rights, had a few laughs, a nice walk in pleasant weather and plenty of birds to see. What better way to spend a day?

Before we left we gave this fella instructions to keep an eye on things until our next visit!

Location - Location - Location

Carrying on from the previous post this is the second in a series of three posts (not many words of wisdom just a selection of images that I hope you will enjoy) each one dedicated to a different location that I've had the pleasure of visiting since the beginning of the month.

I have visited Caldecotte Lake in Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire on a few occasions since the beginning of the month and in varying weather conditions, ranging from snow lying on the ground with the lakes almost frozen over, to a cold overcast day with a blustery wind blowing, through to a sunny day with a bright blue sky.

But, no matter what the weather, the wildlife around the lakes never fails to throw up a good photo opportunity or two.

The photos...

One of the ever present Mute Swans patrolling his patch

 

 And the 'stars' that have taken up residence, sometimes in quite large numbers, over the last month....

Goosanders

Male

Female

Carrion Crow...on the lookout for apple cores, maybe?

A Male Pochard

Cormorant in breeding plumage...the white thigh patch is 'flashed' during the courtship display!

On the day when there was snow on the ground and everything was frozen solid I spotted a group of Long-Tailed Tits busily flitting through the branches of some recently felled trees and I noticed that this one was going from branch to branch drinking from the icicles that had formed on the ends.....unfortunately not a very good photograph as I was shooting into the light!!

Dunnock

Reed Bunting...a male, almost into his black faced breeding plumage.

 And if your quick enough there's always a chance of a flight shot...

Greylag Goose

Black Headed Gull

Grey Heron

For those of you who have yet to 'see the light!' pop over to Caldecotte Lake where you can accompany Keith as he gives you a daily tour around the lake with the help of his excellent photos and videos.