Star Attraction at St. Aidan's RSPB

This little male Bearded Tit has become the star attraction at St. Aidan's RSPB near Leeds recently. It's a fearless little bird and will often pass very close to your feet as it picks up seed heads from the margins of the causeway path between two water courses.

But just like so many small birds that are actively feeding in reeds or other vegetation, it's very hard to get a clear photograph most of the time.  My best photo-opportunites today were looking straight into the sun which always provides a challenge in terms of exposure.  The shot below is probably the best I got of the whole bird.

Here's a more tightly cropped version of the same photo, I'm not sure which one I prefer, but probably the original one.

So here are a few more partial shots taken in the four hours I was there:

 Here's a few other shots I took whilst I was there:

Kent Trip Day 4 - Stodmarsh NNR, Kent

Whilst out and about in Kent last weekend I spoke to many people I met on my travels, and one particular place came up several times in my conversations - Stodmarsh National Nature Reserve.  It was one of the reserves for which I had printed a map and ear-marked as a possible place to go, so with these recommendations I set off on Sunday.

It wasn't long before I was off the main M20 motorway and A-roads and driving down narrow country lanes with high-sided hedges  And then I looked at my fuel gauge, realised the tank was nearly empty and that I was in the middle of nowhere with no signs of any properties, never mind a petrol station - I started to panic!

There was nothing to do except continue driving until I either found a petrol station or ran out of fuel.  Fortunately I made it the pub at the Grove Ferry end of Stodmarsh NNR and managed to get some directions to an ASDA store on the outskirts of Canterbury. It was around 10 miles away but fortunately I made it there and filled the tank right to the top for the journey home tomorrow.

I was going to start my visit to Stodmarsh NNR at Grove Ferry, but after going so far out of my way to get fuel, I decided to begin at the Stodmarsh village end to which I was now much closer.  I have to say it wasn't the easiest place to find on a first-time visit, although I think I'll remember the route if I ever go again.

My target birds here were Nightingale, Marsh Harrier, Hobby, Cuckoo and possibly Bittern. From my recent searches in the last couple of days, I'd decided that I was a bit too late to see Nightingales this year, so I'd probably have to be content with just hearing them and the one fleeting glimpse I had at Cliffe Pools RSPB on the first day of my trip.

I had been told that Marsh Harriers were nesting in front of the Reedbed Hide, so that's where I headed for first of all and on the way there I met a couple who had stopped to listen to a Nightingale.  Apart from a snippet on the car park later, that was the only indication I had of these beautiful songsters here today. And it didn't help by being almost drowned out by a nearby Cetti's Warbler!

 

At the Reedbed Hide I chatted with a local photographer called Alan (I think), who gave me some great information about the site although it was very quiet here today, as well as telling me his life story!  To make things worse the weather was becoming duller by the minute and the sky was leaden grey.  Despite the poor light I did manage to get some shots of a Great Crested Grebe, a Grey Heron catching a very small fish before flying off, and a drake Shoveler perhaps already going into eclipse.

I got my first glimpse of a Hobby through the hide window and Alan then went on to tell me the best place to see them on the route to Marsh Hide, the next one on the trail.  The Swifts were gathering in large numbers and catching flies over the reed beds and they were soon joined by up to half a dozen Hobbies.  Alan told me he frequently had twenty plus Hobbies in the air together here and that there had been a report of up to 60 birds present in the recent past.  Dull grey skies meant that none of my photos were that good today, so I hope to return in better weather sometime.

At Marsh Hide a large party of birders was filling in the hide, and when we asked what they had seen there was nothing much to report except for a distant Greenshank.  They soon left and so did we, and on the way back to the reedbed to look for more Hobbies, I picked up a Linnet.

To end the first part of my visit here, I went back to the Reedbed Hide where I picked up a Greylag Goose coming into land, but nothing else new.  However, there were four other birders in the hide now and we had a good chat about Life, the Universe and Everything as birders and photographers usually do when they get together and nothing much is happening.

After a while I decided to leave the guys in the hide and visit the remains of the old Tower Hide in spite of Alan not being keen to walk down this causeway for some reason unbeknown to me.  The Tower Hide has either fallen down or has been dismantled for health and safety reasons and is now just a pile of wood ruins with a metal fence around it.  But I so glad that I came down here as I heard a Cuckoo which sounded fairly close and when I looked up it was in the tree above me.  Not a great angle for a photograph, but i just love those stripey trousers!

As I was returning to the car park the weather was getting better and blue skies were showing at last.  I met up with another a birder here who was listening for Nightingales and we had a couple of short snippets of song.  We had a good chat about the birds here and the wider area before I set off back to the Grove Ferry end of the reserve for my final session.  I was promised Cuckoo and Kingfisher in the area around Feast's Hide, but I saw only Lapwing, a Common Tern and Ducks.

The sun had come out and with a gentle breeze the reeds were swaying gently. It had turned into a perfect spring evening and I just sat back and took it all in.  Marsh Frogs, which I'd first heard at Dungeness RSPB on Friday, were croaking in bursts from time to time, but I never managed to see one. In spite of the lack of birds and wildlife, I could have stayed a lot longer, but I had promised my son and his wife that I'd take them out for a pub meal as a thank-you for giving me bed and breakfast for the last four days.

But on the way back to the car  I did have very brief glimpse of a fox bounding its way through a field of Meadow Buttercups. Perfect!

Worthington Lakes

I went in search of Mandarin Ducks and Dippers, but came back with Great Crested Grebes instead. Still, I can't be displeased with these two shots.

First Trip to Venus Pool in Shropshire

Following on from my successful day visiting the Night Heron in Shrewsbury, I decided I might as well have a quick look at Venus Pool which was only another 20 minutes or so away. I wasn't really expecting to see much and so it was more of a reconnaissance trip.
 



I'd heard about this place quite a lot from a Facebook friend called Meurig Garbutt and indeed it was he who gave me the directions to get there.

Venus Pool is a largish lake with a variety of habitats including gravel islands, shallow mud areas and a few reeds.  The area is surrounded by fields and arable farmland. There are three hides which are easily accessible from the small free car park, one of which is a feeding station and I believe several others around the opposite side of the pool, but which require a bit of a walk.  Unfortunately there isn't a circular route all the way round.

I didn't have time to walk to the far hides today, so I concentrated on the three hides near the car park.  Here I saw mainly the 'usual suspects' with the addition of a Yellow Wagtail and Common Sandpiper.

As I left the feeding station hide I met a bloke who turned out to be none other than the 'Shropshire Birder' himself, Jim Almond. We had a brief chat about the site before I realised who he was.  When I did, I introduced myself and told him that he was coming to give us a talk at Leigh Ornithological Society next week. It's a small world isn't it?

Dippers on the River Yarrow Revisited

It's been a while since I first saw the Dippers at the weir on the River Yarrow earlier this year. They were nest-building at the time and so the first brood will have hatched and dispersed by now. However, as Dippers often have two and sometimes even three broods in a year, I decided to return today to see how they were getting on.

I'd spotted a single Common Tern over the lake when I first arrived and so I stopped for a shot on the way back. I still couldn't see evidence of any other Terns about.

This Common Buzzard flew over the lake as I watched the Tern. It was shrieking quite a lot and it was occasionally mobbed by Carrion Crows.

There was a pair of Great Crested Grebes nesting under the overhanging vegetation on the far side of the lake. Here's one of them doing a bit of nest strengthening.

The Tern was catching fish and taking it back to the floating raft where it obviously had bred this year. When I looked closer at might my photographs I could see that there were two young, but only one adult bird was present. Perhaps it had been predated. And then, as I was leaving I noticed something in the water near where the Tern was perched on the floating raft. Is is just a fish, or perhaps worse, a mink? I can't quite make it out.

Grebes at Mere Sands Wood LWT

Following on from my trip for the Crossbills at Birkdale LNR earlier today, I decided to call in at Mere Sands Wood LWT on the way home to get some shots of Great Crested Grebes and Little Grebes which a friend of mine had recently photographed here.

The birds were nesting in front of the Cyril Gibbons Hide, the only hide that I'd never visited before, so it was worth going just to get the lay of the land here. I wasn't disappointed, because within 10 minutes I was taking close-up shots of a Great Crested Grebe fishing only three or four metres away from me.

There were just two birds which were nesting in a small patch of green reeds about 15 metres in front of the hide.  Unfortunately, by this time I was looking almost directly into the sun and so it didn't make for good photographs.

So most of these shots are when the male bird swam away from the nest to fish in the area to the right of the hide, barely three metres away from me at times.

The distinctive calls of the Little Grebes were echoing around the Mere for most of the time I was there and there were at least six birds about (3 pairs).  However, for a long time they didn't come close until near the end of my visit, when I managed to get these shots.  They seemed to be building a nest under the branches of an overhanging bush to the left of the hide. Another 10 minutes and I would have gone and missed them.

Sometimes it's just about having fun!