Monday 17 December 2012

With little wind and some good sunny spells, it was a short but enjoyable patch visit this afternoon. I initially went over to the Tree Nursery, the long vegetation and wet ground looks so good for a Snipe, but none were found here, I did flush up a few REDWING, BLACKBIRDS and SONGTHRUSHES, as well as a MEADOW PIPIT, but it was the overflying GREY WAGTAIL (64) that proved of most interest, as it was the first this month  :-)

I quickly made my way over to the Lakes, where I immediately heard, then saw, 2 KINGFISHERS chasing about, they were quickly followed by a sighting of this CORMORANT, which I got a photo of by trying to focus between all the branches in the way :-)
Probably my best Cormorant photo yet, which shows how poor the others must be  :-)
A look around the lakes provided 14 MALLARD and a few MOORHEN but no Goosander today! The adjacent Scrubby Woods were quickly looked over, here 3 GOLDCRESTS, a COAL TIT, and 2 BULLFINCH were about the best of it.

Moving on to the now darkening Wet Woods, I found a TREECREEPER with another 2 Goldcrests, as well as a couple of GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS. With little daylight left, I made my way back over to the Tree Nursery, where it was good to see 3 KESTRELS hunting together, a couple of GREEN WOODPECKERS flew about from shrub to shrub, two more Meadow Pipits were seen, one of which perched up for a photo, as did one of the Kestrels, but it was all too dark by now, making for grainy images, but its better than nothing  :-)
Meadow Pipit in the dying light
Meadow Pipit
Kestrel
Kestrel


6 comments:

Pete Woodruff said...

Raining ALL day here Warren.but good to see you 'did your bit' again today.

Re your Cormorant pic....I'd leave the criticisms to everyone else!

Warren Baker said...

Hi Pete,
The rain is on its way for us too, looks like a spot of garden biding coming up! :-)

Marc Heath said...

Nothing wrong with the shot Warren, nice pose. I almost thought it got darker a little later tonight!!

Warren Baker said...

Marc,
Just 4 more days and it will start to get darker later ;-)

Adam said...

nice kestrel

ShySongbird said...

Hi Warren :-) I always like to see Cormorants in their classic pose. You do get some nice Kestrel shots.

Funnily enough I thought exactly the same as Marc about it seeming to get dark just a little later yesterday!