We haven't been round Ennerdale for a while and as always, it was a lovley walk. Nothing special except good views, a low flying hurricane and a single (lost) whooper swan.
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| A misty start. |
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| Autumn colours. |
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| Birch. |
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| Beech. |
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| Bog potamogeton. |
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| Herdie tup - gorgeous! |
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| Incoming! |
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| The lost whooper swan. |
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| ..and as we left the sun came out! Typical! |
I just love shoveler ...they do exaclty what they should - namely shovelling!
On the way to Caerlaverock, earlier this week, we had some great views of Barnacle geese, in a field next to the road.
A great day out earlier in the week. Nothing particularly different, but good numbers of ducks and lots of barnacle geese. Some whooper swans have returned, but many are yet to arrive.
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| Dricht weather... |
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| Good for teal and wigeon... |
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| Little grebe fishing... |
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| and battling .... |
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| The main pond is no longer being fed at set times so as to avoid crowds congregating in the hide. |
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| Moor hens. |
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| Teal. |
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| Barnacle geese. |
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| Shoveler. |
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| ...and from the car on the way home - whooper swans. |
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| Beddington Farmlands 'wet grassland' area. While not exactly salubrious, there was a fantastic number of birds. |
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| A juvenile shelduck and grey herons. Also present were greater black-backed gull, common gull, black-headed gull, Canada goose, Egyptian goose and mute swan. |
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| But the real treat had to be the white stork! I'll do a subsequent post on the stork as he really was a fantastic bird. |
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| The reserve: left: the tracks surrounding the ponds, right: the northern lake. On the northern and southern lake/southern reed bed there were tufted duck, pochard, shoveler, lapwing, cormorant and little egret. |
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| On a return visit to the wet grassland area, some friendly birders were discussing the identity of an unusual gull (seen mid LHS with a particularly pale head and underparts as well as a slim bill). After some discussion it was settled that the individual was a first winter Caspian gull- a new species to Tom, although that is not much of a surprise as the juveniles of the species are rather cryptic- especially when put among several hundred other gulls! |
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| Some more photos of the Caspian- in the LH photo the gull is looking directly ahead just above a carrion crow. |
The real treat of Tom's Beddington Farmlands trip today, was the white stork currently inhabiting the northern 'wet grassland' area. The stork, 'called' GB35, was introduced to the UK via the White Stork Project, that saw the first white storks breeding in the UK this summer. This individual has been in the UK for two years now, although originally from Poland, and is expected to reach breeding age in the following two years. It was fantastic to see one of the 'original' reintroduced storks and such a fantastic bird so close.
When you go to Caerlaverock, you don't expect one of the highlights to be watching pigeons bathing, but they were having such a lovely time!
