Nipped over to the nature reserve today but the journey did not start well had to turn round as the police had closed one of the country lanes I travel along due to flooding, when will all this rain stop I wonder.
Arrived at the reserve to find a lot of cars down by the education centre this was due I expect to the Tern hide car being closed due to flooding.
My hart sank a little as I was hoping to get a photography of a Mealy Redpoll if they were about, but thought I would not have much chance if their were a lot of folk about and I was right. The only window that opens in the woodland hide was occupied for all of the two hours I was on the reserve!
I did manage to get a good view window though in the very busy hide though the one way glass is no good for taking pictures through so I sat there watching the birds.
Theses were as follows
Siskins, Lesser Redpolls, Greenfinchies, Great and Blue Tits, Blackbirds, Chaffinches, Dunnocks, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Long-tailed Tits.
As I could not see any chance of getting a shot at the prime seat I set off for Ivy south Hide
as I start to walk along the path the showers started and by the time I got to the hide the shower was quite heavy. In the diary someone had written that a Smew had been sighted two days before so I scanned the flocks of duck to see if it was still about, sadly it was not which is a shame as this bird would of been a lifer for me.
I noticed a Great Crested Grebe starting to come in closer to the hide and I though this would be a good opportunity totry out my new hide clamp with my camera. The light was not that good so I had to bump up the ISO to 800 to get a fast enough shutter speed and sadly the Grebe did not come as close as I thought it was going to so the pictures were not great at all pretty bad really.
Great Crested Grebe
Out on Ivy lake were the following birds.
Wigon, Gadwall, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Shoveler, Coot, Moorhen, Teal, Canada geese, Mallard, Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe.
Walking back to the car along the gravel tracks I saw more Siskins and Redpoll in the trees and a wonderful Treecreeper working its way up the tree trunk. Once again just as I was trying to get some pictures of a Goldcrest the rain came down again and I was forced to take shelter and put the camera away. All in all not a bad day though I have had better days there at this good reserve.
This year I started a year list and a Dorset list with the hope of achiving a 150 birds seen by the year.
Some of the birds seen today brought my year list up to 69 species seen so far.
My list to date is as follows
1 Redwing
2 Great Tit
3 Blackbird
4 Blue Tit
5 Dunnock
6 Blackcap
7 Robin
8 Woodpigeon
9 Greenfinch
10 Mute Swan
11 Song Thrush
12 Carrion Crow
13 Starling
14 Blacke-headed Gull
15 Grey Heron
16 Magpie
17 Wren
18 Coot
19 Turnstone
20 Goldeneye
21 Mallard
22 Cormorant
23 Tufted Duck
24 Moorhen
25 Feral Pigeon/ Rock Dove
26 Canada Goose
27 Herring Gull
28 Pheasant
29 Jackdaw
30 Curlew
31 Great Grested Grebe
32 Great Northern Diver
33 Black-necked grebe
34 Oystercatcher
35 Red Brested Merganser
36 Shoveler
37 Brent Goose
38 Pintail
39 Peregrine
40 Dunlin
41 Wigeon
42 Teal
43 Avocets
44 Stonechat
45 House Sparrow
46 Chaffinch
47 Great Spotted Woodpecker
48 Coal Tit
49 Redshank
50 Lapwing
51 Black-tailed Godwit
52 Bar-tailed Godwit
53 Little Egret
54 Spoonbill
55 Green Woodpecker
56 Long-tailed Tit
57 Meadow Pipit
58 Buzzard
59 Gadwall
60 Shelduck
61 Lesser Redpoll
62 Siskin
63 Goldfinch
64 Mistle Thrush
65 Treecreeper
66 Goldcrest
67 Kingfisher
68 Little Grebe
69 Pochard
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