Not much to report

I've not really had much time to do a lot of birding since the New Year, and as a result, there hasn't been much to write about. Birding is restricted to weekend mornings only at the moment, and the last two weekends have involved high winds and poor weather. This weekend was the first with bright conditions, though the temperatures were cold.

The highlights on the patch this morning were a flock of Canada geese about 80 strong with a couple of Greylag amongst them grazing in the water meadows next to the River Anker. Then, a little later as we reached the fields of longer grass, a flock of around c50 Linnet were circling the field. They landed and disappered into the grass.

Kestrels were also on the move this morning with three being spotted. So, it was just common stuff about this morning, but it's still nice to see them.

As I wandered around this morning, I used the phone to take a few pictures of the areas I was walking through.

We have a couple of feeders in one of the Birch copses. They are seeing plenty of use. It's nice to see Coal Tit using the feeders. The light wasn't good enough for fast shutter speeds this morning. I tried to capture a Long Tailed Tit from a visiting flock on camera.

Some of the grazing geese.

A very distant Buzzard. I'm still experimenting with the Nikon P300 through the scope.

A bit of this mornings scenery.

 

Pete checking birds in flight.

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It is about this time of year that a Mandarin Duck starts putting in an appearance on the local canals. I hope to cross paths with it again. A couple of years ago, it had an American Wood Duck drake with it. It's always nice to see them. These were taken in previous encounters with these stunning looking ducks.

 

Footnote - The last hour of daylight on Sunday was spent watching a pair of Barn Owl hunt and quarter a meadow. An amazing sight, and a great way to end a weekend.

 

 

 

 

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