Not what I was looking for…

…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!

                                                                                                                                                            

A DISTANT DUCK, AERIAL COMBAT AND A BIG FAT DIP

Yesterday I arranged to meet Keith, at silly o'clock (it was still dark!), in the car park at Wilstone, one of our local reservoirs.

Our quest? to see if we could locate the American vagrant that had been giving good sightings over the last few days...A female Ring-Necked Duck (aythya collaris)    Did we see it?  Eventually yes...sort of, but not until a grown up birder with a big spotting scope had pointed it out to us, it was quite distant!

In case you don't know what a Ring-Necked Duck looks like, here's a picture of it!

After the excitement of seeing 'the duck' we set off to walk around the rest of the reservoir.  After walking for about fifteen minutes it suddenly hit me that I no longer had the back pack, containing the wide angle and macro lenses that I usually carry around with me!  A quick rewind and I came to the conclusion that I'd left it in the bird hide, unloading my camera and bins onto Keith I set off to hopefully retrieve my belongings. Now, have you seen that funny walk  people do when they're in a hurry? .....two or three quick steps followed by a funny sort of  straight legged jogging then a few more quick steps, add in some muddy tracks and grassy banks...get the picture? I even passed two lycra clad young ladies that were out jogging/ walking their dogs (okay...okay...they'd stopped for a chinwag)  back at the deserted hide, there was my bag, exactly where I'd left it.  I shouldn't have worried, it was still early and any sensible birders were still in bed!!

It was a rather slower walk that I took to catch  back up with Keith!...the rest of our journey around the reservoir was rather less eventful, save for a quick glimpse or a long staying Water Pipit and a close flyby of some Greylag Geese that were returning to the water after feeding out in the nearby fields.

Our next stop was College Lake, just a few minute's drive away, where we were hoping to see the (three?) Jack Snipe that had been reported as showing well the previous evening. As we walked the circuit of the lake we stopped off at the various hides...no Jack Snipe to be seen though!

There were quite a few Common Darter dragonflies about along the footpaths, this female decided to have a little game of hide-and-seek with me.

At one end of the lake there is a large area covered in rough grass and small trees/shrubs and it's always a good spot for seeing Kestrels, Red Kites and Buzzards. It wasn't long before we were treated to a graceful/lazy flyover by this Buzzard.

Soon we heard the angry  kaar, kaar call of a Rook, it didn't take long to spot what all the noise was about, up in the sky above and, slowly drifting towards us, was a female Kestrel being harried by a rather persistent  Rook.

This went on above our heads for quite a while before the Kestrel  decided she had had enough and made a graceful exit.

There was one final hide to visit in the hope of seeing those Jack Snipe, although we did managed to spot four or five Snipe none of them were Jack Snipe. In other words we'd experienced what grown up birders call a 'dip' (or they've dipped) when time is spent looking unsuccessfully for their target bird.     And we'd just dipped...a big fat dip!!