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.
…but a couple of nice surprises.
On Friday, but too late to visit, I saw the reports that a pair of Garganey were ‘showing well’ on a lake at a nearby nature reserve. So yesterday, hoping that they had ‘settled in’, I decided to go and have a look. It was a nice sunny/blue sky morning and I was up early and with time on my hands, the reserve doesn’t open till 9.30!!, I decided to stop off at a site where I’ve previously seen Corn Buntings…no luck this time though! I was however treated to the sight of a lovely pair of Stonechat, distant at first but, slowly getting nearer as I tried to make myself as invisible as possible by mingling my 16 stone bulk into a very thorny Hawthorn bush…ouch! But, as is the way of things, just as they were getting into decent camera range they were flushed by a group of walkers who were allowing their two dogs to race, seemingly uncontrolled, around the field where eventually they managed to scatter a flock of sheep with no discernable control or concern from any of their owners. I guess the dogs were just being dogs..but the owners….??
A distant male Stonechat.
It was nice to hear the songs of the many Skylarks as, still killing time, I sat in the car with the warm sunshine streaming through the windows and read the newspaper. Now, despondent and fully depressed at all the ‘news’ I decided to have one more look in the field to see if the Stonechats had returned…unfortunately I couldn’t re-locate them but what I did notice were the Skylarks they seemed to be everywhere, and a couple were in camera range…just!
Skylark
It was now time to make the five minute drive to find the Garganey. On entering the main hide, which was quite full!, the only conversation that I could hear was…”any luck with the Garganey?”….”have you spotted them?”…”seen ‘em yet?”…to which the replies were a rather subdued…”na”….”nope”….”not been seen this morning”… and then there’s always one smug smart arse who comes up with the most helpful and encouraging answer…” I saw them over in that corner of the lake yesterday and they were showing really well”…!!!
I eventually spent a couple of hours sitting in the, cold and draughty, hide watching the other birds that were on or around the lake…including; Wigeon, Tufties, Gadwall, Mute Swans, Greylag and Canada Geese, Lapwing..busy staking their claims to nest sites on the islands, Shoveler, one Oystercatcher, twelve plus Snipe..they’re good at hiding!! and the bonus of a new ‘tick’ for the year..a ‘bouncing’ Jack Snipe.
Oh!…and I almost forgot…..Saturday morning and half term school holidays = lots of noisy screaming kids…bah, humbug!!!
This notice, spotted on the way out, did manage to raise the mood a little…
…Is it just in case they should get the urge to do something really naughty?
And after all that…still no Garganey!
