Common birds at Warnham in the sun. Lovely!

As the bank holiday was to be sunny, Lynne and I went to Warham Local Nature Reserve for a walk and so Lynne could try out her new camera. We did the circuit of the lake, the woods, the reedbed and we spent a good deal of time at the Woodpecker hide where the staff had obviously put out a feast of birdseed for the holiday! This attracted not only the common garden type birds but also one or two others.

Around the lake we saw herons at the nest with young high in a tree (quite far for photos), coots, mallard, pheasant and a mute swan that was chasing everything that moved!

Heron with 2 young

Heron takes flight

Don't cross this mute swan!

Coot clapping wings.

Mallard not quite sleeping.

Pheasant cock

 

All the common birds came to the feeding station. Was it bad of me to hope that the sparrowhawk would come down and take one of the chaffinches? It didn't happen.

Blackbird with juicy grub

Chaffinch - female behind

Chaffinch

Goldfinch

Great spotted woodpecker

Great tit

Greenfinch

Long-tailed tit

Magpie on the prowl.

Wood pigeon. Don't you just love them!

 There were also a few characters who do not normally go to feeding stations, such as:

Reed bunting - female.

Reed bunting - male

 The most surprising bird to appear was a Mandarin duck drake in a tree! Later he too came down to feed.

Mandarin duck - male

Mandarin duck - male

Elmley in a late start to Spring

Elmley, on the Isle of Sheppey, can be a marvellous place. Usually the drive from the road to the car park takes me 1-2 hours depending on what is there. Yesterday afternoon, it didn't take me so long, as I didn't see much on the way in. I walked down to the first hide. Almost immediately I saw, distantly, the Bonaparte's gull which promptly moved further away after a few short hops into the air.

A mute swan was nesting near the track.

Mute swan - female.

There were plenty of ducks, waders and marsh birds. The avocets were busy mating!

Avocets

The marsh harriers terrorised the whole marsh!! Some turnstones walked around the edge.

Turnstone

A female wigeon passed by with a large wound on the side of her head. Wonder what happened to her?

Widgeon - Female - with head injury!

There were quite a few pochards, especially lone females.

Pochard - female

Two common terns circled the Wellmarsh Hide. My first terns for this year. A male pheasant passed very near the path.

A gorgeous male pheasant

I started back to the carpark. I was the last to leave. I had nearly reached the exit when an oystercatcher came very close.

Oystercatcher

Shortly after that I passed a pair of red-legged partridges literally on the side of the road. I stopped and reversed but they had already gone further away. Anyway, this shot is handheld in poor light just before sunset.


Red-legged partridge