Edging through the winter months

Depending on the weather I can find a great deal of enjoyment during the winter months. Obviously grey and drab misty days hold little enjoyment for wildlife watchers and photographers but given the prospect of a bright day, especially with overnight frost, I can plan the evening before with some expectation of a good day ahead.

Planning is quite important for what I do, checking reports of bird sightings in nearby areas, contacting friends to find what they have seen and sharing my sightings too. Check all the gear the night before and you find you have far less of those "Oh **** I haven't got my ......" insert words as you wish!

My raptor watchpoint is a very treasured part of my wildlife watching world, some days we see little activity or the birds are only visible and identifiable through telescopes but the company is great and we do have some successful days, my personal record is nine different raptors in a day.

One of the team puts some bird food on a nearby wall for the smaller birds, chaffinches are regular visitors.

One of my friends has been visiting a site further west with some success and I had my first exploration of the site in December, light was poor on the day but plenty of fieldfares were around.

Greenfinch too

A little egret, once scarce these birds are becoming widespread now...

Nothing spectacular on my first trip but I was impressed with the habitat so it was logged as a place to return to.

Rodley Nature Reserve is a personal favourite, in a very urban location and run by volunteers, funded by grants and donations, it has reedbeds and ponds, gardens and fields, and is a splendid place to spend a few hours.

Within minutes of settling in a hide a kingfisher appeared!

This doesn't happen every time....but my first sighting from my next hide was an otter!

Some days you bless your good fortune.

Calling in at Wharfedale for one of my regular riverbank patrols something similar happened, first bird kingfisher :-)

No otters on this occasion but long tailed tits were showing well...

These tiny birds struggle badly in very cold winters but seem to be doing OK so far this time.

Dippers are none too hard to find on this river

Reed bunting male at the raptor watchpoint

And a robin

We had a spell of bad luck and weather/wind directions which limit raptor sightings so photographs of the smaller birds kept me going!

A walk on local canal towpath, another kingfisher this time a female, they seem to like me at the moment...

The red under the bill is the indicator of female, male has an all black bill.

And a payoff as later we visited the new site mentioned earlier, late in the day and iso at maximum two barn owls appeared. All I could manage was one shot of a stationary owl, flight shots are impossible at 1/10th of a second shutter speed!

Far from my best but wonderful to watch as the pair hunted the reedbeds.

A couple of days later another bonus as a hen harrier appeared at the same location, awful light and impossible to guess at age or sex.

On a better day a blue tit posed nicely before deciding to flee, I love the accidental shots I occasionally get!

That day will live in my memory forever, in the company of two great friends we saw a hen harrier initially in conflict with a corvid, then it flew so close to us but so fast I could not get focus on it! Fortunately the camera auto focus worked for plenty of shots!!

The bird is a "ringtail" harrier, a term used to describe females and juveniles which have the bands on tail, not just female as I observed on an ill informed blog recently. This one is a first year male, the white edges on the greater and primary coverts on the upperwing and a pale yellow eye are key indicators, sorry for boring you with technical detail! What a fantastic few minutes.

All my hen harrier sightings are reported to the hen harrier hotline the RSPB run, please let them know if you see any. The most persecuted bird in the United Kingdom and numbers are critical, very few adult males are being reported and obviously without them breeding pairs will be scarce.

All reports are confidential but are vital to monitor where the birds are appearing and as breeding season approaches, which areas need to be monitored.

These last photographs were the results from probably close to 50 hours observation and patience, and you know what...well spent time. If you equate that in money to time spent in commercial hides for sparrowhawks which are not really that hard to see...in excess of £1,000 ....all it takes is patience, knowledge gained as you learn, and the last bit is the most important bit of kit...fieldcraft.

I have been walking, exploring and latterly photographing wildlife for a long time now, I appreciate it but uppermost I respect it.

Many thanks to all who read the blog, don't forget if you do comment they come to me first for moderation.

Hope you all enjoy the update, looking forward to Spring!

Moving towards winter 2016

The leaves are falling, the daylight hours are getting shorter it can only be late autumn. Although there are probably less bird species to see they are easier to spot with less foliage on the trees and if the paths remain reasonably dry some great days can be enjoyed.

We had a long weekend up in south west Scotland with our friends John and Karen, a lovely cottage near Dalbeattie was booked for three nights and we met up with them at RSPB Mersehead for an afternoon's bird watching before heading off to locate the cottage.

Many thousands of barnacle geese arrive from northern climes at this time of the year but our first bird was a lovely greenfinch...

The barnacle geese were all around in the fields...

Shoveler duck (male) out on one of the lagoons...

Easy to see how they gained their name!

The geese came in close now and again...

...and then as often happens with recently arrived migrants, something would spook them and thousands would circle round before landing again!

As you can see the weather was not too photo friendly!

Returning the next day the skies had brightened and a sweet robin posed nicely...

A yellowhammer too

If it wasn't for the intrusive twig!

Out at sea the sky was interesting...

Reed buntings showed well

A male pintail duck

Ken Dee Marshes is another great RSPB reserve in the area and we always pay a visit when we are in the area.

Plenty of common species show well and a the now uncommon willow tit has a stronghold here,

Blue tit

Nuthatch

Coal tit

Great tit

Willow tit

Nuthatch again

And another blue tit

Fieldfare in flight

Rather than head straight home on our day of departure we called at a little nature reserve near Lockerbie, red squirrels thrive here and come amazingly close with a little bit of patience. It is amazing how close the world of wildlife photography can be and within minutes of being there I realised two great Facebook friends were there, great to meet Stuart and Gill and we had a good chat between snapping away at the squirrels. Another gentleman who was using the hide introduced himself and so the circle of like minded wildlife photographers increases! Great to meet you Tony!

Anyway squirrel shots...

As usual a great trip with dear friends, virtual friendships made a little more real and a new friendship too.

Back home and reports of waxwings all down the east coast and heading our way, I got a report from a mate of them near Silsden and we dashed off to find them. We do not get these visitors from Scandinavia and Siberia every year, how true the stories of them being a sign of a cold hard winter to come are I don't know, but they are stunning birds.

Just my luck a grey and murky day but at least we had sightings and photographs.

I kept a routine check on the waxwings hoping for a brighter spell of weather

Finally a bright day arrived!

A red kite from my raptor watching...

More waxwings!!!

 

Although we have had some great sightings at my raptor watchpoint including, goshawk, hen harriers, peregrine, merlin, red kite, sparrowhawk, buzzards and kestrels recently not much has been close enough for photographs.

Some small birds are really comfortable there and one of my favourite photographs was this blue tit.

 The sun is usually setting when I leave the watchpoint giving me the opportunity to stop off on the way home to get a shot or two.

Splendid ends to splendid days, me and nature seem to get on quite well. The love of being out there in natural surroundings enjoying what the day brings is calming, peaceful and relaxing. The company of my friends at the raptor watch is treasured, learning is never over and I still have a long way to go to reach the levels of knowledge I aspire to...plus we enjoy a fair few laughs!!!

Many thanks to all who read the blog, don't forget if you do comment that they come to me first for moderationn