Red-Crested Pochard and Mate, at Hanningfield

Two long day's spent searching for a massssssive perch out on a boat at Hanningfield Reservoir, Essex, saw a catch of water birds of equally dismal proportion. We caught no perch between the two of us, but saw remarkably few birds also. The usual mallards and coots, but even they were few and far between, then in the afternoon of the first day up by the inlet, we spied a pair of unusual ducks, a gaudy cock with his drab hen following along behind him, a girl who could easily have been a mallard at the very respectful distance they kept at all times from our craft.

Turns out they were red-crested pochards, a duck species I have never seen before ~

As always, my long distance pictures were rubbish. Every time I tried I got blurred shots, the camera mistaking one thing or another for its focus object, but managed to get one quarter decent shot at 300 yards range, that I could use for ID purposes.

One day I'll get a big camera, but why would I take such a lumbering monster fishing with me?

Till then you'll have to be satisfied with what I get!

Quite a rare bird, I have heard. Escapees mostly the 30 or so breeding pairs in the country, or the very occasional wild birds reported on places such as Abberton Ressy, which is only a stones throw from Hanningfield really, so perhaps these too, were wild?

It's likely...

On the second day they were still there, hanging around and about the inlet at Middlemead. We also saw a lone black swan, but apart from the three worth seeing, there were very few natives on Hanningfield, let alone rarities.

Passage Vagrants - A Hawkesbury Reprise

I've never had even whiff of an osprey in fifty years and then two turn up in consecutive blog posts. Walking the dog down the canal I had the sudden urge to walk across the top of Leccy Mountain, the huge pile of dirt heaped upon the demolition site of the old Hawkesbury Power Station. Up top I was admiring the 'stunning' panorama of the entire horizon from Coventry to Rugby, Nuneaton and beyond when out of the blue a buzzard appeared soaring high above the hilltop. Blow me if it wasn't followed close behind by one of the those big gulls - an osprey...!

The one I saw at Seeswood was going in the the direction of here so I wonder if the power lines are a navigation aid? This one flew off following them towards Rugby.

I managed to get a shot at what seemed quite close range but looks far, far away, but it'll suffice ~

Ospreys eh? Common as muck...

Passage Vagrants - A Seeswood Surprise

Fishing at Seeswood Pool in Nuneaton with Steve Philips I was having a hard time of it. Steve was catching some of the pool's lovely roach - I wasn't. Just as I got about as frustrated as it is possible to be a very large 'gull' appeared from the direction of town and flew over the lake toward us and then this gull turned into a very odd-shaped 'buzzard' when it stopped flapping its curiously bent and pointed wings, stretched out its finger primaries and started to soar and wheel. I watched it for a while, not really concentrating upon it and then decided that I might get a picture if it came close enough and so I readied the camera.

The bird hovered over the centre of the lake for a few seconds and then suddenly folded its wings and dropped like a stone crashing onto the water in an attempt to take a fish off the top. It took a few seconds for the surprising maneuver to register for what it really was - I was still stuck in buzzard land - the hunting dive of an osprey!

Steve saw it too and was thinking the same thing, convinced that a buzzard had tried to take a grebe - but there had been no grebe to take. I found out later that I did get a picture, a very bad picture indeed though, of the moment it folded its wings and began its dive. Sometimes I think I'll have to get a better camera for such moments as point and shoot compact digitals are too slow and cannot focus easily upon distance birds in flight against sky and often just hazard a guess creating a blurred and useless shot.

The next shots were not much better and even when the bird was as close as it ever got to me the pictures were rubbish, but I did get one fair one that shows the bird's distinctive wing shape in near focus. Unfortunately it exposed for the sky and so the underside is shown in silhouette and the light underparts were lost in the dark.

On its way back to its winter grounds the bird had stopped off at Seeswood Services for a bite to eat. That it missed its target was too bad - wouldn't it have been nice to catch the classic osprey shot of the bird with a large roach in its talons? But it fished just as badly as I did and flew back up to try again, only it got bored and flew off a few minutes later, headed South to toward Coventry and the next patch of open water no doubt.

Like the Spanish Inquisition, no-one expects an osprey. That they are seen quite regularly over open freshwater all over the Midlands and South in Spring and Autumn came of a surprise to me - they are reported more often than I'd thought they'd be - but this was the first time I'd ever seen one and I don't expect to see one again for some time, though I'll always have an eye open in the future when fishing...

For very large gulls and odd shaped buzzards!

Suburban Raptors - Longford Buzzard Flight Shots

As I 'walkied' the dog past the canal side perch I heard the unmistakable plaintive mewing of buzzards somewhere over in the field. They were not in the usual oak and their calls seemed to be coming from the motorway so I'm surprised I could hear them with all that racket going on.

I decided to get the camera set up early on full zoom and went round the back of the hedgerow to investigate hoping to catch a few snaps. I spooked the bird out of one perch in the M6 embankment trees and it flew off to another at a safer distance. I got a shot but you'll have to click on the picture to enlarge it to be able to spot it ...

Then it flew off and came my way but I missed a flight shot by seconds so ran back through the hedgerow and just caught the bird on the other side as it soared into the clear sky above the trees...

Then I noticed its mate soaring a good thousand feet up, too far really to see it as anything more than a dot through the lens even with additional Photoshop zooming, however I kept snapping away and got a good enough unblurred soaring shot of the first bird...

And then a better one still as the bird came directly overhead. They both then flew off into the wind toward the second perch over by the Ricoh where they are, no doubt, as I type these words...

Should Have Gone Back To Iceland...

This pair of whooper swans have been on Wyken Slough all Summer long. Perhaps they have turned resident as they should have buggered back to whence they came by springtime. I wonder if they have decided to stay and even nest here next year? That'd be interesting as there's only a handful of these birds that have decided to do so and they are up in the North of England I believe.

They are pretty large birds and quiet with it. The lakes huge population (for its size) of mute swans keep well away from them up in the northern part of the lake and the southern end is their sole territory. They never venture far from the footbridge and can be seen thereabouts every day with the mallards milling about them.

I have a body feather that must be from one of them as all the mute swan feathers that have parted company with the bird have blown into the margins at the other end. Hard to tell though...

Both birds are ringed I have noticed. It's great to see them so close up too as they are supposed to be wary of getting too near to us and most observations are made through binoculars. You could probably have these pair eat out of your hand

The Water Birds of Blenheim Palace Lake

We had a days fishing out on a punt on Blenheim Palace Lake and saw plenty of water loving birds there on our perambulations around in search of some very hard to find fish. A large contingent of resident cormorants was a spooky sight having all but stripped their chosen perch clean of leaf and twig.

There were plenty of them seen at range, perhaps fifty or more but they scare easily and when we got within shooting distance many had fled and by the time we were under the tree most were gone  leaving just the more ballsy individuals to eye us warily as we passed them by...

This single black swan was a highlight. An aggresive cob who strutted by feathers fluffed up in display giving out his weird singing warning and telling us interlopers in boats in no uncertain terms that this was his territory and beware!

There were no other swans of any species on the lake and I don't remember much in the way of ducks either, but then again the mind just ignores mallards as part of all watery scenery in britain. There were moorhens of course, no coots and quite a few herons - a much larger population than I'd have thought though I don't know if they nest in the area.

We witnessed a fast flying kingfisher buzz across the whole width of the lake in what seemed like just a few seconds but by far the most entertaining birds seen were the great crested grebes who were working ceaselessly to feed their young. Efficient anglers they are catching one after the other tiny perch and hardly ever coming up from a dive empty beaked.

As night fell a vast flock of large gulls flew in from the north and occupied at least an acre of water just under the cormorant roost. It was many hundreds strong if not the full thousand. When we eventually sculled back to the boathouse they all as one flew up into the sky and disappeared, presumably to return once the coast was all clear. They had been far too far away to identify unfortunately but whatever they were they were certainly not uncommon!

A Heron Fishing at Lucy's Mill

I was fishing for roach a few days ago at Lucy's Mill in Stratford-upon-Avon enjoying myself catching a few redfins and generally enjoying the day when this heron, the first I have even seen this far into town despite having fished here many, many times over he last few years, flew out of the wood on the island and took up position on the mill wall by the second weir...



...It stood awhile upright and dead still, then bent down when it spied a fish...

 ...seconds later it dropped into the water like a kingfisher and pounced upon its hapless prey...

 ...but so far as I could see at that distance - it was a good seventy yards away - missed its target.

Ah well, you can't win them all!

Luckily my camera, though not equipped with a lens that can actually make pictures in-camera like the ones above does a good enough job on full zoom for me to be able to zoom in much further in Photoshop than I would have thought and make a fist of a reasonable distance shot.

Lucky also that I kept shooting through the whole action and got the exit shot but the downside with compact digitals with any subject that moves suddenly and quickly is that the slow refresh rate for the cameras electronics meant that I missed the bird actually hitting the water which would have been a prize shot indeed.