Totally Otterless

As I mentioned in my last post, I went off early on Wednesday morning last week in the hope of seeing one of the Rooksbury Otters, when I arrived on the edge of the lake at about 7 am I joined Grant on one of the fishing Jetties, having seen & photographed the Otters on the previous 2 evenings Grant had the same idea as me in getting there early in the morning. I must admit I haven't visited any large bodies of water at that time of the morning before and as the sun started to appear above the trees mixed with the mist rising from the waters surface, it created a very atmospheric scene. Just had the wrong lens on the camera to capture it.

We didn't see any Otters, but below is a link to Grant's webpage and the few Otter pics, you can also see is regularly updated work on Facebook - GrantAutonPhotography
http://www.gautonphotography.com/Nature-1/Fauna/Otter/22420448_mf68QG#!i=1792410987&k=LmLLd34


So totally Otterless, we had to make do with watching a very statuesque Grey Heron on the opposing side of the lake, which as the time ticked away became bathed in more and more sunshine, the ripples on the water reflecting nicely too.

Grey Heron

I was just saying to Grant that I didn't think the Heron was the usual Rooksbury suspect, when within about 5 minutes the resident Heron swooped in low squawking straight for the interloper. Causing the intruder to take flight being chased all of the way. Proving my theory right.

The Intruder

There are always plenty of Coots on the lake, and if you sit and watch them long enough they are pretty good value, especially when walking on water, possibly the most ungraceful exponents of this behavior. Im still fascinated by the size of their feet, I guess they're quite a hinderance when it comes to being graceful.

Walking on Water

A New Discovery & 2 Pairs Of Showoffs!

My apologies for a serious lack of updates this week, Work has been pretty manic, and I've had to work late on a few occasions. Which has cut down a serious amount of Wildlife time, how ever I did manage and a couple of hours before and after work on Tuesday down at Rooksbury, on the look out for the 2 Otters that were seen on Monday & Tuesday, no luck, I just got wet.

I did manage to grab 45 minutes around home on Wednesday night, as the sun reappeared through the constant on and off showers. A nice gaggle of Greylag feeding on the shorter grass by the river bank, they seem to quite like this part of the river, as I've seen them there several times. A lone Moorhen also shot across the shorter grass in-front of me, It still amazes me how huge their feet are! They do get up quite a speed! One of the male Blackcaps from the weekend was singing in the branches, just managed to a fire off a couple of shots before he disappeared.

Gaggle Of Greylag

Roadrunner

Blackcap

Now we've been getting a pair of birds visiting the feeders quite regularly since they've been put up, and I wasn't sure about the Identification, not in the sense that I had no Idea just that they were very similar, I have now managed to get a fairly close up, but grainy shot that I can share with you. Its taken a while to distinguish the difference, and the leading factors for my identification is the shape and color of the bill and the call. So I give you the Marsh Tit. Now you can see how viewing from a distance gave me an discernible problem, the difference between Marsh & Willow Tit. But I managed to sit within 10 feet of the feeder, and after viewing and listening Im fairly confident now. So I give you my first ever Marsh Tit.

Garden Marsh Tit

Also whilst waiting for the above mentioned bird, I was distracted by a shadow moving rapidly across the lawn. I look up to discover not one caster of said shadow but two, in the form of Red Kites, the evening sunlight catching the coloring on the birds undersides brilliantly.

Show offs!

To round off a pretty rubbish day yesterday I got home at about 7 pm for Dad to happily rub it in, that I had missed a pair of Green Woodpeckers feeding for about 35 minutes in the sunshine no more than 15 feet from the Kitchen window on the lawn. Gutted with a capital G! And to make matters worse he had a pretty good video to prove it!