A Week at Rooksbury - 18th - 21st Feb

Massive apologies to all my blog readers as I am a whole 2 months behind, work has been manic for the past month or so and all lunchtime trips out have been halted in there tracks. But you don't want to hear about that so I will try catch up on some blogging normality, I would say expect them all thick and fast in the coming days, but we shall see.

So after the excitement of the Great Bustard it was back to the humdrum of a lunchtime walk around the lakes. Both appeared really quiet with hardly any birds visible on a fairly bright February Tuesday afternoon. 4 Little Grebe appeared on the large Lake and showed fairly closely for Little Grebe, both  a Sparrowhawk and a Cormorant perched atop waterside trees surveying the scene.

I managed to seek out a rather bold Goldcrest singing in the ivy tree at the far end of the reserve, and after a short wait I was rewarded with some lovely close views, even if the foreground and background was cluttered with twigs.

Goldcrest 

Singing Robin

With Rain on Wednesday, I returned Thursday lunchtime to an even quieter reserve, a brace of Gadwall pairs on the small Lake, and now only 2 Little Grebe on the large lake. Several Goldfinch fed on the thistles by the car park and I did catch a glimpse of a calling Grey Wagtail as it zoomed over the top of the water.

I did have some joy whilst sat on the bench overlooking the lakes, 3 raucous Mallard put down the landing gear, and somehow I managed to catch them in almost perfect synchronicity. They soon were joined by 3 other drakes who all raced off after the lone female.

So all in all quite a quiet week at the lakes, but nice to see a little of Spring in the air.

Little Grebes

Incoming Mallard

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Blashford Woodland Hide

With weeks of Slimbridge posts I can finally get on to some other wildlife encounters. Unfortunately I am still over a month behind and really should get my fingers loose for plenty of typing.

The following Sunday from my trip to Slimbridge, the girlfriend was down and with some pretty indifferent weather we headed down to Blashford lakes. The main car park was flooded along with the Tern Hide that overlooks the huge expanse of Ibsley Water. That instantly put a massive dent in my visit.

As the rain started to come down we headed for shelter in the Woodland hide. A cracking hide with loads of feeders but only with one partition that opens to allow clean photography. As you can imagine this prime piece of real estate by the window is most usually frequented. And in previous visits as Im sure I've blogged, I have encountered photographers who have bragged about being sat there all day.

Luckily today after 15 minutes or so the old couple that were there up and left, and I was on hand to slide my considerable girth along the wooden bench and into position. As mentioned there are loads of feeders attracting a wide variety of woodland birds. Within minutes, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, Nuthatch, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Lesser Redpoll, Great spotted Woodpecker, Pheasant, Collared Dove and several stunning male Bramblings had visited the different feeders.

Nuthatch - Check Out The Tongue Action

I try nowadays not to capture birds on the feeders as branches give a far more natural look. This however isn't always easy, especially when the birds tend to land directly on the feeders. I must admit I couldn't resist a few shots of the ever present Nuthatches who were not at all bothered by the camera just a few feet away.

Brambling Male

Goldfinch

The main purpose of my visit was to hopefully catch a few shots of the gorgeous Lesser Redpoll, but after waiting a good hour for them to land on the nearby branches I had to make do with a few feeder shots. The light was changing every 2 or 3 minutes as the clouds rolled by above, which when leaving a clear path for the sun created a lovely glow on the bracken behind the birds.

Now I hear you say I sat in the window a good hour, now that would make me as bad as everyone else I earlier moaned about. But as several other photographers entered and rather annoyingly shot over my shoulders with there lenses, 5 minutes or so later I packed up and let someone else have my spot. Turns out no one filled it so I sat back down. Playing fair isn't it?

Lesser Redpoll

Lesser Redpoll

Cock Chaffinch

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Willow Hide Blue Tits

Stunning Blue Tit

I spent some time in the new Willow Hide at Slimbridge, situated really close to the feeding stations, a little to close if im honest, the birds are really skittish of any movement in the hide. A lovely collection of 'Garden' birds visited in a constant stream. Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Chaffinch, House Sparrow, Goldfinch, Greenfinch and even a rather quick Lesser Redpoll.

The light was beautiful, highlighting the last of the autumnal colours in the bushes behind the birds, so I made the most of photographing some rather photogenic Blue Tits.

Cock Chaffinch

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Glittery Goldfinches

As mentioned in my last post, the light in the garden by midday got a lot brighter, and although the feeding station remain in shade, the trees behind glowed in bright sunshine. This gave quite an interesting Bokeh effect on any photographs I took.

As I guess with most Feeding stations, by around midday the Birds tend to tail off a little, with more frequent visits first thing in the morning and last thing in the afternoon. This did however give the opportunity for the Goldfinches to appear. 

I really like the background its just a shame the sun wasn't pitching in on the feeders at the same time, but hey ho thats how it goes.

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Garden Light Not Quite A Delight

With no plans for the day, a few Sundays back I decided I'd try and spend some time with the garden birds, in-between a lot of periods of helping Dad with the odd job or too at home. A nice day beckoned and although the grass was crisp with an early morning frost, a lot of mist hung in the air. Thats one of the smaller issues I have with living next to a river, waiting for it to clear off was a pain.

Having setup a landing branch just feet from the feeders, I was already attracting plenty of visitors, however the combination of shade from the willow tree at the bottom of the garden caused by the lowly and slowly rising sun and the mist that hung still in the air, made for some pretty high ISO's and some rather grainy early shots.

First to inspect the branch was a Robin, several appeared before me throughout the morning, one second they're perched nicely posing, the next off in a blur of feather after the intruder. Blue Tits, Great Tits & Coal Tits visited frequently and fast. Barely pausing to grab a seed before they were off back into the surrounding woodland, the one species that did takes its time and one of my favourite garden visitors, the Marsh Tit, we seem to have a healthy population in the garden with up to 4 birds visiting at anyone time.

Cock Robin

Marsh Tit

Collared Dove

The clear up specialist arrived roughly about once an hour to pick up the fallen seed, the Collared Dove always seem to know what time to visit, making sure there would be enough to feed on. As the day progressed and the sun moved somewhat higher and further around in the sky, the lighting on the feeding station changed from dull to bright in the mere matter of minutes, from ridiculously high ISO's because of the dull light, I then had to wrestle the camera settings to knockout all of the highlights. Never satisfied! The brightness did however create a nice bokeh effect in the background.

Other visitors included Nuthatch, Goldfinch, Chaffinch & Long Tailed Tits who I shall post about next, plenty of variety and quite an enjoyable few hours spent at home with the camera.

Great Tit Bokeh

Great Tit

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Return To Humdrum & The Rain

I've been back from Pembrokeshire for nearly three weeks and would love to share a wide variety of Wildlife adventures in those weeks, but Im afraid due to most wind and a whole lot of rain, Birding in Hampshire hasn't been overly successful.

After being one of the latter additions to the Garden species list (which now stands at 61) the Nuthatch is now making up for its earlier no show. Frequent visits every 3 or 4 minutes indicated a nest with young not to far away, and this theory proved correct as over the weekend, plenty of chirping was heard from the nearby trees and 4 Nuthatches bombing about at once. The opportunity to photograph one however has proved pretty tricky, what with the lighting conditions and the speed at which they feed on the nuts high ISO's have been the order of the day.

Adult Nuthatch

Finally One Stopped Still

We've had plenty of other visitors lately to the feeding station including this rather odd looking Jay, I can't decide if it looks bedraggled because of the weather, or because its a Juvenile. There is just something about its appearance that isn't right, I just cannot put my finger on it. But it certainly adds a rather larger colour addition to the bird table other than the smaller Greenfinches and Goldfinches who have both been joined by fledged young in the past week or so. The Pied Wagtail is a regular visitor to the lawn and great amusement to the dogs as they wait to see how far it will get towards the backdoor before bundling out after it.

Young or Bedraggled Jay? 

Pied Wagtail

With the fishing season in full swing access to the riverbank at a sensible hour is pretty non excitant, luckily the past fortnight has been for weed cutting, therefore no fishing, enabling me to get out and see whats new and exciting on the River. Firstly the Little Grebes not far from the bottom of the garden have successfully hatched off 2 young and even stayed in sight long enough to allow a picture. In the 2 mile or so stretch of water we have 4 pairs all with young.

Little Grebe Adult & Young

Little Grebe Young

The Mute Swans soon appeared in their usual spot and it was good to see that they still have all 7 Cygnets in tow, funny to see them in exactly the same spot of river as when I photographed them 3 weeks previous. Along with the Swan and Grebe young quite a few Coot chicks follow there parents up and down the waterway, one brood with 5 chicks in.

Mute Swans & Mom

Coot Chick 

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Garden Birding & New Arrivals

Confined to barracks by the weather, I set the tripod up in the porch on a very grey and cold May Saturday morning, hoping to capture some of the activity on the seed feeding station in the garden, which now gets refilled every other day. The local Goldfinches & Greenfinches are quite partial to emptying the Niger and particularly Sunflower feeders. Whilst crippling mothers purse, it does mean that there frequent visits mean I didn't have to wait too long for a photo opportunity.

Greenfinch

Greenfinch 

Goldfinch

With the Goldies and Greenies not pausing to long on the uprights before descending upon the nuts, I hoped for a slightly slower moving bird. The next to visit was the Coal Tit who seems incapable of staying more than 2 seconds to feed, Im not sure if its a size thing, as an inferior sized member of the Tit family he / she might be intimidated by the larger birds or just the fact they've got a lot of hungry mouths to feed and can't hang around socializing over lunch. 

Finally some slow moving garden inhabitants, as 4 Long tailed Tits joined a couple of Blue Tits on their feeder of choice containing the Fat balls. I think they are such characters!

A midday phone-call, and panic stations!!! Prepare a cricket pitch to play on in less than 24 hours, 10mins later from short drive up the valley, and Im watching 2 rather unexpected visitors in a pair of Ravens circling the field next to my cricket pitch. I don't ever recall seeing them in this part of sleepy Hampshire before. As the afternoon progressed and the sun deciding to put in an appearance, once back in Longparish I thought I'd check on the Greylags, the Goslings seem to have grown substantially in the week or so since I first saw them as a Geese grazed side by side with the rough looking rare breed sheep.

Greylag

I was quite surprised to find a Goldcrest singing in the tree above me as I noticed the newest family arrivals in the village a Mute Swan pair with 4 fluffy grey Cygnets, who couldn't have been no more than a couple of days old.

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