Thursday 14 February 2013

The weather has at last turned more springlike, temps were up to 10C, with some good sunny spells, in which if you stood, the temperature felt even warmer, great to feel the warmth of the sun on your face!

I decided to split the afternoon, I could here the Gas Cannons and chainsaws again, which isn't good news, so I spent an hour walking over to the lakes, and then 90 minutes back at home in my shed (garden hide) trying to get some bird photo's to fill the blog folder  ;-)

Walking to the lakes via Tree Nursery, little was seen, just a DUNNOCK and a MAGPIE,  then cutting across the edge of the Wet woods where the chainsaws were noisily going, nothing but the spring call of GREAT TITS was heard, I did take note of the now green carpet of Bluebells now spread across the woodland floor though (below)
Bluebells shooting up through the Wet Woods floor
Walking the footpath to the Lakes, a pair of GOLDCRESTS were seen, then approaching the water, a pair of CANADA GEESE came into view on one of the smaller lakes, where the COOT pair had now come back out of hiding after yesterdays disturbance.
COOT
Coot
Coot ( I like Coots!)
On the main lake there was another pair of Canada Geese, but also, more excitingly, was a female GOOSANDER, excellent! I'm doing well for these this winter  :-)  I moved around the lake to get the sun behind me so as to get a Goosander photo, but the geese spotted me and started up a real racket, spooking the Goosander, sending it off into the sky, you cant sneak up on a Goose! A CORMORANT watched the goings on from a favoured tree on the bankside, but apart from 4 MALLARD and 6 MOORHEN that was it for the waterbirds today.

Walking back home, one of the KESTREL pair was seen hunting over at the Greenhouse Grounds, and a SPARROWHAWK sped past me as I walked along Ashes Lane.

Once home I set up in my shed and took a few images of the garden regulars, no species I haven't posted before, but nice blog brighteners for the future, here's a couple of tasters  :-)
LONG TAILED TIT, at last I got an image of on the 'Blog Log' as well as in the sunlight!
GREEN WOODPECKER is now a permanent fixture, and seems to accept the clicking of the camera  :-)



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh...it wasn`t quite that warm up here Warren..but it was definitely the warmest it`s been for a while.

Warren Baker said...

Deano,
It was tee shirt weather when in the sunshine and out of the breeze :-)

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Very pleasant here Warren - ants out where my mate was working in a sunny spot!

Cheers

DaveyMan

ShySongbird said...

Hi Warren :-) How lovely to see the Bluebells showing, a real promise of Spring! I rather like Coots too despite their squabblesome (not sure that's a word but you know what I mean ;-) ) nature. I think Coots and Moorhens are very underrated.

Great photos again. Not often we get close enough to a GW to see its dirty face :-)

Warren Baker said...

Hi Songbird,
One of the joys about watching a local patch is having the situation where even common birds can be a rarity on your patch, as you know Coots are real scarce here :-)

Joe said...

It really is nice to have had some warmer weather today, the sun made such a difference. Also that photo of the Long-tailed Tit is really nice and sharp with perfect light. Also it's great how that Green Woodpecker keeps visiting, nice photo of that too