Saturday, February 05, 2011

Grey and Windy

You wait all week for the weekend and do you get sun? No its grey and windy!! The later put play to the idea of heading to Ickworth to snap more snowdrops.

And so I went patch watching at Rye Meads. Of course I expected to see little and photograph even less. But there were plenty of finches (green, gold and chaff) about and tits (blue and great).

At the Draper the water was high, loads of shovelers about and AH the unmistakable sound of a Little Grebe and coming into breeding plumage. They are a lovely little bird. Think there was a second about.

The Tern hide is at the moment one of the best hides. Lots of ducks(shelduck, pochard, shoveler, gadwall, mallard, teal, tufted) and gulls (oh if you insist black headed, common, lesser black backed and Herring).

And this little chap. Grey bird under grey skies on a grey back ground is not helping the photos but I do like the Green Sandpiper.






There had been talk that a Kingfisher was seen at the Kingfisher hide (apt!) but not by me it wasn't. Still I'm hardly going to moan when it had a substitute.



Yep a Bittern, doing what Bitterns normally do .... i.e. not much!

Well it had a stretch.


The rest of the walk was uneventful. I added Redwing to the days Thrush list to join Blackbird.

On the drive up the toll road out of the centre were 4 Egyptian Geese. A surprisingly productive litte stroll.

And on this grey almost Autumnal day really its hard to believe that a rather plain and non descriptive little bird is starting to think of heading North and with its unassuming little song herald the start of Spring.

Frankly I can't wait to hear him!

4 comments:

oldcrow61 said...

Marvelous pictures.

Tricia Ryder said...

Grey seems to be the order of the day at the mo... (or at least the order of the weekends!!)

Well done on getting the Bittern... and yes, the song of that "little brown job" heralds the beginning of Spring for me too :D - hope it comes soon!

Carol said...

Grey is one of my favorite colors..and each little critter deserves it's day on the blog...had there been other more colorful birds available..you'd have bypassed these. So glad you didn't.

St Jude said...

Lovely photos. I've had a pair of Jays visiting for the last few days. They make me laugh as they always seem to be arguing with the rooks.

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