The rain lashed down making the motorway driving most uncomfortable as we sped southwards with CR to rendezvous with AK at Pennington Flash, a site we've not visited for a week short of a year. To our surprise AK was already there donnning her waterproofs - that doesn't happen often - - no, not donning the wet weather gear, the arriving first; in fact this could be the first time it's happened in 40 years!!!
We went straight to the Bunting hide feeding station with a very brief stop at the little hide on the way. We were relieved to see plenty of food at the feeding station as last time we were here it had all been eaten by the time we arrived making for little activity to watch and photograph. Today however there was still a fair amount left although it looked like the choicest morsels had already been eaten. There were far fewer Grey Squirrels this time, their place as 'eaters of the most grub' being taken by at least a dozen Magpies. Fortunately there was enough food left to keerp the smaller birds interested, too quick for us were the numerous Coal Tits that came and went in a flash taking seeds to cache for later. A couple of Nuthatches kept our shutter button finger busy even if the light was poor - at least it had stopped raining - - well we had put our waterproofs on so that was bound to happen.
The
Nuthatches scoured all the nools and crannies that the feeding station offered
but there was little left other than on the main table
The star of the show at this site are the
Willow Tits, there's still a small population, I'm not sure if they're doing well or just about mananging to cling on, hopefully it's the former either way we were glad on turned up for us making several trips to a small stash of Black Sunflower Seeds the other birds (and squirrels) seemed to have missed.
And then on to concentrating on a
Blackbird that looked like it was going to scoff some
Hawthorn berries.
It did reach down to grab some, the ones hiding below and to the right of the two prominent ones so sadly I failed to get a clear shot of it in action. The light under the tree canopy, although poor, was just right for showing off the
Magpie's irridescent plumage, they absolutely sizzled today.
Time to move on so we wandered around the trail scouring edges of the tree-lined path for fungi, not much joy and nothing worthy of raising the camera for. Coming to a clearing we found a
Buzzard sat in a tree well back from the path.
A couple of trees to its right was a second
Buzzard.
A
Great Spotted Woodpecker was also in this tree but wouldn't come round to the front for a pic. After a few minutes watching them
Buzzard 'A' decided to shift trees and watch us back for a little while
before taking to the air,
shame there's a bit of motion blur, before having a soar around over our heads.
Some
Long Tailed Tits and a
Goldcrest in the most wooded stretch of the path weren't wanting their pics taken. Coming out of the woods AK suggested we break from tradition and turn right up towards the canal and have a mooch along there with fingers crossed for a
Kingfisher. The nearest we got to a
Kingfisher was a pair of
Mallards and a fly-over
Cormorant.
At the impressive 'Lock Gates Monument' we left the canal and ventured back towards the lake through some (not too) recently planted woodland where we discussed (once again) the inticacies of
Pedunculate v
Sessile Oak identification to the sound of nearby
Jays, presumably interested in all those acorns which ever species they are. It was here we began to find some interesting fungi. First up being a new species for me,
Red-cracked Boletus.
Followed by another new species for me, a
Panther Cap just broken through the surface and not yet expanded.
Close by were several of the much more familiar
Fly Agarics. In varying stages of open-ness
The most open had lost its white spots and inverted a little but enough to hold a small pool of rain water - no we didn't fancy a 'possibly interesting' drink even if it did miss out the collecting
Reindeer urine bit.
We walked on a bit further to have a look over the flash (= lake) and several
Herons, Little Egrets and a couple of
Great White Egrets all either resting along a shallow spit of submerged land or in the overhanging trees along the lake edge. A couple of
Great Crested Grebes were just offshore too.
A quick look at the watch revealed it had passed lunchtime and all our butties were half a mile away in the boot of the car. Nightmare!!!! A route march ensued but we hadn't got far when we got distracted by three
Goosanders that hadn't offered a photo opportunity on the way in.
We were didtarcted again moments later when a
Kingfisher flashed passed. Luckily it called giving us a milli-second's warning it was on its way and I was just about able to fire off a few shots as it sped past - my those guys are fast!!! And small!!!
Our route march back to our food to us past two hides that we didn't even think about stopping at, such is the lure of pastry. Lunch was eventually taken in the Horrocks Hide where despite some impressive managenment work there was little to entertain us close by, all the action was at the far end of the spit where a coupleof dozen
Cormorants sat with about 50 invisible
Lapwings until something flushed them and they rose from their hiding place behind a kittle ridge into to the air and floated about for a few minutes. We did have another
Kingfisher fly past us at breakneck speed and a couple of
Little Egrets flopped lazily about in the middle distance. Maybe we should have checked the
Tufted Ducks loafing by the car park as intensly as we scrutinised the gulls for any
Mediterranean Gulls as the following day a drake
Lesser Scaup was discovered lurking in the flock. Anyway lunch scoffed we made our way round to the first of the two hides we rudely ignored earlier. Not a lot there, one of a couple of
Cormorants that were fishing in the lagoon looked like a continental '
sinensis type' but we failed to get a conclusive pic. In the beutifully autumnal coloured
Dogwood bush to our left a
Blue Tit hopped about but again wouldn't stay still enough for a pic. With not a lot happening we moved on to Ramsdales Hide. As soon as we got there a
Jay flew past low as it it was going to land on the cleared area in fron tof the hide. Submitting a Jay to the SD card would be good as my annual International Bird Photo Challenge has stalled a bit in recent weeks. AK spotted a second one high in a tree behind the hide. We managed a few shots but none perfect as there was always something in the way - still it's identifiable and so good enough for the Challenge, coming in at #172 for the year.
At least we got a bit of a pic showing the glorious blue patterning on its wing.
Back in the hide we had a third Kingfisher fly past, too quickly again. Striding around in the sdhallow pool were two Great White Egrets, one at the far back and another much closer.
I always struggle with the exposure on egrets....but a couple of days ago I learned that my camera might have the answer built in...I'll try it out next time.
The light dropped and rain began to fall.
The rain tipped down on a drake
Teal that had come a little closer to us.
With time passing and light fading we decided to have one last look at the feeding station once the rain had lightened a bit. A good move it was too as we had a very close female
Bullfinch gleaning the last of the now slim pickings on offer
and a rather dapper male
ChaffinchI was pleased when it moved to a natural perch nearby.
We had a brief visit from a
Nuthatch in the gloom before calling it a day and hitting the slow roads home through Friday tea-time traffic.
Not the best weather conditions for pics today but then if you don't get out you won't see nowt!
See you next time...who knows where and it might be a bit of recent history I've been on a few safaris you've not heard about yet.
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