Week 49 29-03-2015 Birds Spotted 0

I'm pretty sure I'm approaching the end of the first year of my blog and somewhere along the line I've messed up the week. Still, we'll worry about that shortly.

This weekend has been more miserable weather, so I'll be posting up images from last week's trip to Moors Valley Country Park. I didn't see any new birds, but I did manage to take some nice photos, so I'll be sharing those with you for the time being. Enjoy.

One of the first things I spotted was this Magpie, busily eating some food
 it had stolen from somewhere.

There were plenty of gulls around, but nothing out of the ordinary. 

Here's the first of many Black-Headed Gulls.

I thought this was a Little Gull as it was quite graceful in flight, but it's another BBG :)

Due to plenty of people feeding the birds there were plenty of fights on the pond.

This young Herring Gull was happily chasing the smaller gulls for food.

There were a few Lesser Black-Backed Gulls around as well.

Mallards were plentiful. In fact they were pretty much the only ducks there.

There were a single pair of Wigeon, but they stayed far out for the entire duration.

I also saw a distant Great-Crested Grebe

A hunting Buzzard.

While a singing Robin finished off the day.

Week 47 15-03-2015 Birds Spotted 0

It's been another two weeks and another two weeks of terrible weather.
I've seen plenty of birds, but the light has been so poor that it's made actual photography rather pointless.

I visited Kingston Lacey for the first time on the 8th and quite enjoyed it. There's plenty of different habitat there, particularly forest, but the general darkness meant it was hard to get nice shots. Still, I saw plenty of different birds, including Long Tailed Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Robin, Green Woodpecker, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Rook, Chaffinch and even a Buzzard, making it an enjoyable trip regardless. Here's some of the shots I could salvage.

Blackbird.

Herring Gull.

Long-Tailed Tit.

Blue Tit.

Robin.

I then visited Longham Lakes on the 14th, but it was another lousy day due to the dismal overcast weather. I did speak to a lovely couple however, who told me they were on the hunt for Black Necked Grebes. I didn't see any and I also missed the Scaup.

I always scan the distant field for odd geese, but no luck this week.

Coot looking for food.

I'm pretty sure this is a ChiffChaff.

There was a large flock of Pied Wagtails.

This is as close as I could get.

Mute Swan.

Canada Goose.

And a Dunnock looking for food.

Week 45 01-03-2015 Birds Spotted 0

It was a pretty disappointing week this week as the weather has been absolutely lousy.
I was able to get down to Longham Lakes and take a few photos though. It was a pretty disappointing set of pictures though due to the general dullness of the day.

I saw plenty of birds though including Long-Tailed Tits, Blue Tits, Goldcrest, Pochard, Shoveler, Mallard, Scaup, Tufted Duck, Canada Geese, Mute Swan, Greylag Geese, Blackbird, Great Created Grebe, Little Grebe, Black-Headed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black Backed Gull, Coot, Moorhen, Cormorant, Kestrel, Little Egret, Carrion Crow, Rook, Jackdaw and Magpie, so not a bad selection all in. I was hoping there might have been some special geese in amongst the Greylag and Canada Geese but no luck (although they were quite a way off).

Surprisingly, I didn't see too many Mallard today.

There were far less Pochard too.

The Scaup was a little further out today, hanging out with Tufted Ducks.

This is the closest I could get to a Great Crested Grebe, the Little Grebes were right in the centre of the Lake, so were pointless taking shots of.

Canada Goose and Mute Swan.

Canada Goose with Mallards.

An unknown gull. Herring Gull?

Canada Geese flyby.

Little Egret in a distant field.

Some very distant Greylag and Canada Geese.