Blashford Lakes

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