Christmas Day 2018

With my wife Sarah now working as a paramedic doing 12 hour shifts on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day and my two kids having left home, I had nothing else to do today except go birding.  I decided it would be nice to try again for the Kingfisher and Bittern at Sprotbrough Flash near Doncaster as the roads would be clear for the 90 minute drive there and the hides would hopefully be empty.

I set off in dull, overcast conditions and by the time I reached the high point on the M62 over the Pennines, the visibility was down to about 20 metres due to fog.  My hope was that it would clear up as it so often does when I go over the top here and descend into Yorkshire proper.  And indeed, it pretty much did that, with the conditions being almost sunny as I reached the A1 for the final push to Sprotbrough.

When I arrived at around 9:15am I was very surprised to find several cars on the small car park - these dog walkers get everywhere, even on Christmas Day! And thankfully there was also one person in the hide when I reached it because he immediately put me on to this Kingfisher which was perched in the dark dell to the left.

I hurriedly got my camera out and fired off a few shots before it flew off - no time to change the teleconverter or adjust settings much, so these were all shot with at an unbearable 3200 ISO because it was still on an automatic setting.  With a perched bird like this I would have tried to lower the ISO manually to at least 1000 and possibly 800 to suit the dark conditions.

The first guy left (didn't get his name) and I was soon joined by Paul Langley with whom I had a long conversation whilst taking a few more shots of the Kingfisher which by now had moved in front of the hide but in a position covered by branches.  The shot above has been 'Photoshopped' to remove a twig going across its beak - can you tell?

Around 30 Gadwall had gathered on the Flash today and it was great watching and listening to them feed en masse  giving me the impression of the sound of running water. There were also many Cormorants, Black-headed Gulls, Mallards, Tufted Ducks and a single Great Crested Grebe on the water.

Later Jo Webster joined us - I had met Jo before at Sprotbrough when we were trying unsuccessfully to photograph a Waxwing which had been feeding regularly on cotoneaster berries in a suburban street - the bird never showed whilst we were there and all I got was a Blackbird.

We all had a good chat together and Jo soon put us on to a fast moving Water Rail which she had found to the right of the hide.  Water Rails usually skulk around the reeds and this one was no exception - all I managed to get was its head.

Later we were joined by Ian Unwin who came and put some more seed down to bring in the woodland birds which included Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird and Reed Bunting.

Just before I left I spotted a redhead Goosander sailing past us for a short while before it flew off. Unfortunately, the Bitterns didn't show at all whilst I was there today.

Following Ian's excellent directions, I called in at the Adwick Washlands RSPB reserve for a reccy for future reference.  Not much there of note today except Gulls, Wigeon and a few woodland birds, but it looks like it could be very productive at the right time and I know a redhead Smew was there last year.