An early morning walk around the pond in search of waders and the little egret proved to be negative as i unloaded my gear into the public hide and sat looking out over the pond at black headed gulls,Canada geese,and a pair of mute swans with two signets I was then surprised by this barn owl that flew across the front of the hide,I waited for it to return and managed these four shots (pity we had a shower of rain in the small hours) as you can see by his front.
A week away looking around nature reserves and a spot of walking resulted in a couple of nice birdy pics.
Spent an hour around the pond to try out my new camera and lens ,first shot was of the male Swan (cob)getting upset with the resident Canada Geese you can understand why because the next shot is one of his offspring just snuggling down in the vegetation.The surprise of the day was Marsh Harrier having a look around far be it a good way off.
An early walk around the pond in search of Whitethroats and Sedge Warblers for my photo album proved quite productive this morning,this camera of mine seems to have a mind of its own when it comes to focusing, however I did get one nice Whitethroat and a couple of Sedge Warblers which were also hard to catch.
Holywell pond produced what can only be described as a portrait photo of one of its residents,on a sad note i think his mate is in the next field deceased
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A few photos on our trip to Bempton Cliffs,the pic of the Gannets mating was taken at long range by digiscope
An early spring break saw two half day visits to Leighton Moss and as usual was not disappointing,the local Peregrine kept everything on there toes three lovely Snow Geese doing a fly-past and another first for me with a Great White Egret which was a little far away but pics not bad.
An unexpected call from Bob and Liz this lunchtime ended up with a trip to Clara,the light was not good for photo’s neither was the lane down to the reserve with plenty of snow and still quite thick there.We had the hide to ourselves the pond was still partly frozen with a few Mallards sitting on it at the far end and four Moorhens pecking around the edges,the feeders and the ground around were quite busy with Robin, Blackbird, Dunnock,
Great,Blue,Coal and a lovely Willow Tit almost all of which are displaying rings (BTO busy around here),with a couple of passes through the feeding station by the resident Sparrow Hawk, Pheasants pecking around in the undergrowth and the occasional sighting of the Grey Squirrel a nice chilly afternoon was had by all.
A days fishing is what my mate Bob had in mind when he left home on Friday morning,however Jack Frost had bet him to it with a covering of ice over the whole lake and not wanting to fish eskimo style returned home to swop his fishing gear for his camera and binns.He decided on a trip to couple of hides at Clara-Vale and boy he wasn’t disappointed with uninterupted views of the Blue Flash (kingfisher) taking close on 200 shots he was well pleased with his trip ,here’s a couple I stole for me blog.
Three days over on the Solway Coast to see the Geese was mindblowing to say the least up to 20,000 at Caerlaverock WWT and 12,500 Barnacle and 2,500 Pinkfoot at RSPB Mershead.One thing for sure is they dont like the RAF doing low flying!! a real site to see and hear when they lift I managed a few distant photo’s as you can see.
