Thursday 29 September 2011

Some local birding.

Having just returned from a few days birding in Norfolk I thought I'd better do some local birding especially as the weather was good so on Tuesday morning I shot over to Brandon Marsh.

Went to the Steetly hide first where a KF paid a very brief visit and a Grey Wagtail showed for a while but no decent pics.Visits to the River hide,the Teal pool and East Marsh hides were a waste of time as they were all very quiet.

I then went down to the Carlton hide (the hide that died) hoping that the Hobby which showed so well for several of my friends on Saturday would turn up.Well it turned up all right but the miserable so and so stayed over the Newlands for a while then disappeared for good.Bugger Bugger !!!!

Not a good visit then but to stop it being a total disaster two things saved the day.Firstly the weather was excellent and it was a pleasure to walk round.Secondly on the main path between the Teal pool and Carlton hides (and not at Elstree film studios nor on the set of the latest James Bond movie ) I met up with the most attractive young lady I've ever seen.My brief chat to her consisted of lots of stuttering and drooling.What a stunner!!! The problem I've got now is that I must text Scarlett Johanssen and tell her that I no longer love her and she is not going to be pleased.

Woke up on Wednesday morning to find I was still drooling over the Brandon beauty and the weather was great again.I decided I would have a go at the BN Grebe at Napton again to see if I could improve on my previous shots.

Got there just before 10.00AM and found the weather was excellent and only a couple of fishermen there.Because of the sun I walked to the southern end of the reservoir where I soon found the BN Grebe but it was well over 50m away.After an hour's wait it still stayed too far off for pics but soon after a friend joined me it slowly came closer enabling me to get some shots.





At midday I went the short drive to Draycote Water.Walking down Farborough bank I knew that I would be lucky to see anything because when the weather is as fine here there is nothing about usually and this proved to be correct because by the time I got to the Spit I'd not seen any waders at all.A bit different from a week or two ago.

I then decided to have lunch and I went down onto the grass bank and found a nice spot.I'd just finished my first roll when I noticed a bird on the top of the hedging so I got the bins out and was chuffed to bits to see it was a Stonechat a bird I hadn't seen for a couple of years.Finished my lunch and set about getting some shots if I could get close enough.

After shuffling down the bank several times when the bird had flown off I found a decent spot and waited patiently (about an hour) for it to return and come close.Luckily for me it did.




2 comments:

Kevin Groocock said...

What can I say, Max, other than excellent!

Max Silverman said...

Cheers Kevin.A bit of luck is always helpful.