Saturday, July 30, 2011

Change of Plans

If you had asked me what I was going to do last night you wouldn't have got what I did.

It was a lovely bright start so I headed to the Forest (I haven't been for a few weeks).






There seemed fewer Grebes about today, the youngster may well have flown as they were quite big 3 weeks ago.


There were still two Terns and one of the young has fledged and was sitting on a pole calling.

Lots of Woodies about. A male Green Woodie supervisor a youngster feeding on Ants whilst 30 feet away a young Great Spot was on the ground doing the same thing.

Lots of young birds including Blackcap and Goldfinch (so odd without the red face!). And the Swallows seem to be out and about in force.




It was a lovely stroll there was a Heron flying about, I got to sightings of Kingfisher and there was a Green Sandpiper - good bird for the lake.

Now my intention was to go to Saffron Walden to pop into a branch of the Saffron Walden building society and then on to Audley End but last night I had seen that there was a Wood Sandpiper seen at Rye Meads so I popped into the branch at Bishops Stortford and then onto Rye Meads.

A good start was a Water Vole munching away. Then on to the Draper hide there were 7 Green Sandpipers and.....






Lovely and to be able to compare it to Green Sandpiper and a super patch tick!

This coot was not popular with the local Terns!



Another good local bird was a distant Black-Necked Grebe in summer plumage.

Red Admiral.





Common Whitethroat.


A lovely bit of local birding.

4 comments:

Tricia Ryder said...

A goodly selection of birds there and the Wood Sandpiper... would have been a lifer for me.....

Nicely posed whitethroat too :)

Ragged Robin said...

You saw some great birds today Pete and well done on the Wood Sandpiper.

Lovely photos of the red admiral.

oldcrow61 said...

Nice pictures, looks like you had a great day.

oldcrow61 said...

Looking at these pictures again and realized that I forgot to say that those tree trunks are fabulous.

Blog Status

If you want to use any photos on this blog please see this link.