A Mixed Bag

Since I last updated this page I have been spending a lot of time out and about in the hours of darkness. After work walks and very early mornings, before there is sufficient light to take photographs. I have been watching badgers, foxes and looking for owls.

I have seen all of the above with four different Barn Owls sighted, two Tawny Owls seen and plenty of calling Tawny Owls heard.

 

I have been walking stretches of our local rivers looking for signs of Otters, but nothing to report on that front. The rain and subsequent flooding experienced at the beginning of March soon put a stop to that and left large areas of the surrounding fields and countryside under water as the rivers burst their banks.

Just before the floods hit I decide to try my hand at catching a Chub from a particularly good looking stretch of the river Anker that Pete and I had walked. It looked an ideal Chub habitat and I haven’t had the urge to try for any species of fish for a long time. I spent a couple of hours on a cold but bright Sunday afternoon and hooked and landed a Chub. It’s easy to overlook the wildlife below the surface of our waterways while out appreciating the more obvious plants and creatures.

While plotting the downfall of this “Chevin” and waiting patiently for it to happen, I enjoyed the aforementioned more obvious critters as three Kingfishers flashed up and downstream, a Little Grebe fished opposite me and my first Grey Wagtail of the year showed off it’s colorful plumage as it bobbed up and down on the far bank rocks.

This morning, Pete and I went on our usual Saturday morning walkabout, and the highlights were a small flock of Siskin feeding well in some Alder trees and this Little Egret fishing along the bank of the river Tame.