March 28th Strumpshaw Fen

Daffodils

The rain has returned to Strumpshaw on Wednesday. I managed a short uneventful walk to the river before the rain began to make any impact. But it wasn't until I got back to Reception Hide to start my shift that things really started to look miserable. Though it wasn't chucking it down hard or anything, it was still relentless and continued to rain well into the afternoon.

Blossom

Coot on nest

With the rain covering the landscape like a vast curtain of raindrops as far as the eye can see, it was clear that it was going to be another one of those days where not a lot is going to happen. It was a day only fit for ducks and geese, though, even they didn't seem overly excited about it. And while the greylags and Canada geese did occasionally have the odd spat amongst one another, the mood was still on the sleepy side. It was really up to the territorial coots to stir things up as they were constantly chasing off the ducks and moorhens away from their nest sites.

Greylag

Shoveler

Male Teal

Female Teal

Pochards

Tufted Duck

White Greylag with a normal Greylag and Tufted Duck

Moorhen

Woodpigeon

Chiffchaff

Other than wildfowl, I was pretty much entertained with a game of 'Where's the warbler?' In the reed beds on either side of the Reception Hide, Cetti's warblers and chiffchaffs were giving me quick glimpses as they busily flit around the reed stems. Every so often, they produce a call, giving me a rough idea of their location. They then gave their positions away through movement, but they were playing hard to get when it came to trying to photograph them. They were just moving about so quickly and the reeds also obscured them, making things even harder. However, it was still a fun game that really helped pass the time. Also seen this morning were marsh harriers and buzzards that looked as if they wanted the rain to stop as soon as possible, while a kingfisher made one brief appearance and seemed unfazed by all this wet weather.



Marsh Harrier

Buzzard

Carrion Crow

Kingfisher

Blog Update

As you may know, this week has been a bit of a disaster for this blog. But there may be some light at the end of this dark tunnel. I have upgraded my Google Photos storage to 100mb, meaning it should be plenty of room for all photos from past and future posts on this blog. My next task is to retrieve those missing photos. Though I don't think I can retrieve them all from their deleted state from Google Photos on the internet, however, I can still get them back. Thankfully, I still have all these photos on my computer. All I can do now is to re-upload them to each post. With these posts dating as far back as July 2016, this may take some time to do. So please be patient with me. It may take months to recover them all. I will work my way down from the most recent to the last post that was effected (My French Adventure - Part 7).

Fortunately, the posts dating between December 2014 - early July 2016 are completely fine (which includes my How To Draw series), so you can still look at those without any problems. And I will also continue to add new content on top of this. So it isn't the end of the world for this blog just yet.

March 21st Strumpshaw Fen

Marsh Harrier

It was a bright and reasonably warm day, a call back to last Wednesday. You wouldn't have known that it was near below zero between then and now. This morning, I was joined by Sam Stronge, who wanted to film the marsh harrier sky dancing displays with me at Fen Hide. It took them some time until they started to participate for us, though it was mostly distant and not as flamboyant to what I was hoping. If only we stayed behind just 5 minutes after we had to leave the Fen Hide so that I could start my shift as it apparently all kicked off. I saw part of it from Reception Hide. The males were busy showing off with looping aerial displays. However, it was actually the buzzards that really dominated skies with at least 10 or more of them spiralling high above the reserve like a column as the morning thermals carried them higher and higher into the clouds.

Buzzard

Kingfisher

The other main highlight on this fine Wednesday morning was a pair of kingfishers. It was a bit of a territorial dispute as one chased the other away before coming down to perch on the small boat that belongs to the reserve's staff and was moored in front of the Reception Hide. This was a female as you can clearly see from the orange 'lipstick' on the lower mandible of her bill and in this perfect light, her colours truly shone brightly. After a couple of minutes posing on the boat, she made a short flight to the post over by the reedy islands before leaving the scene. There were other brief appearances, but nothing lasting long enough as that first showing.

Also about today were; 3 Chinese water deer from Fen Hide, 2 treecreepers, siskins, the sound of drumming woodpeckers and the first yellow flowers of colt's-foot are now in bloom.

Chinese Water Deer

Gadwall

Teal

Shoveler

Mute Swan

Mallard waiting for a free meal!

Canada Geese

Male Pochard

Female Pochard

Wren

Goldfinch

Colt's-foot