On Safari with Dave

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 enou...

A meet-up with some of the gang down at Burton Mere RSPB reserve, down at the thin end of the Dee estuary in Cheshire, was on the cards a couple of weeks ago, somewhere we don't get to very often. While waiting for the other half of the gang to arrive I had a scan over the large pool in front of the visitor centre seeing several Ruff and a few Black-tailed Godwits , in the distance a 'swarm' of House Martins had gathered over the far side of the reserve after a short shower. Meanwhile Cliff had spotted a couple of European Hornets going about their business around a Bramble thicket to the side of the centre. I had a look at them, they're not something we see often and these are the furthest north I've seen them in Britain. They were great to watch but not so easy to photograph as they spent quite a lot of time hidden by the foliage and flew from spot to spot frequently so getting the camera to focus on them was more luck than judgement. Almost got it right... Sti...