More Bird Watching

Its been rather dull of late but this week I had a couple of bird watching trips. At Blashford we saw some redpolls and long tailed tits along with great and Bluetits. There were also plenty of siskins , green finches and chaffinches. We went up to the North hide but the Bittern was hiding in the reeds although he had apparently been about earlier.
Today I slipped down to Eyeworth Pond and saw the mandarins. I put a little food out and we had all the tits and nuthatches galore. A couple of chaffinches put in an appearance but there don't seem to be many about and those I saw had badly crusted legs.

Marsh tit
Nuthatch
Blue tit
Longtailed tit
mandarin Duck

The Waxwings Came to Town

I woke up this morning to pouring rain and did not think I would be taking photos. I walked the dogs and the weather was a little brighter. I looked on the Two Owls website and saw some Waxwings were about 20 miles away and decided to go see if I could find them. They are winter migrants and not that common. I picked Karen up and we drove down the motorway . We arrived at the location and couldn't see any sign of them , although we met several others looking for them. We walked around the housing estate they were supposed to be frequenting for about 90 minutes . Most of the other seekers had given up and gone elsewhere and we decided our luck was out. As we walked back to the car , the one other remaining watcher saw us and said look up in the tree. But for him we would have missed them. At the time we counted 17 but looking at the photos we think there were at least 20. The photos are not the best , they had chosen the tallest tree in the vicinity to perch. But we were happy, I had never seen them before. After about 10 minutes they flew off and although we went back to the berries we had seen we did not see them again.

Alittle Bird and deer watching

Karen and I finally felt well enough to go for a drive in the forest. We spent a while watching the birds at Eyeworth Pond . There were several mandarin ducks around but they are not coming close. We think this is because of the dogs that were playing in the water.. There are so many ponds and streams in the forest without birds it seems a shame that people allow there dogs in those ponds where the birds are. When we started to feel the cold we jumped back in the car and drove up to bolderwood to see if we could find some deer. We were lucky and I particularly like this little fallow doe who stood and watched us. she decided we were not a threat and went back to grazing with the others.

two faalow Bucks smiling for the camera

Bluetit

Coaltit
Nuthatches like nuts!
and so do marsh tits

Its been a while

since I last posted. I have had the flu that has been sweeping across England and have really been under the weather. I had a new lense for Christmas a Nikon 70-300mm and i really haven't had a chance to use it. Today I slipped down to Eyeworth pond for a little while but the light was not good. Every morning the long tailed tits are coming to the feeders in the gardens . I do like these little birds, they are so pretty but it is so hard to get a photo of them.

A few Bird Shots