We covered A-C in part one of this blog. I’d like to thank those who have made kind comments on here and on the Newport Wetlands community pages (where I usually lurk).
This week I move onto D, E and F on the things in the last five years of being a bird watcher, and two years of being a RSPB Cymru volunteer. So with no further delay …
D is for … Ducks!
If C for Canada Goose was what light the touch paper of my interest of birds, then ducks were my first love! As Newport Wetlands is my nearest RSPB Reserve, it is only natural that ducks of all varieties featured in the first birds I learnt to identify. My love of ducks is only matched by my love of social media. I soon started getting a name for myself on twitter as the duck man. For a long time I posted a daily picture of various dabbling and diving ducks under the hashtag #dailyduck. Soon enough other twitter friends started joining in with their own pictures of Tufted Ducks and Mallards. It was great fun, and I hoped it helped raise a little bit of awareness of my feathered aquatic friends.
Two things have shocked me when it comes to ducks. The first was learning that the one duck we can all identify, the Mallard, had become an amber listed bird. Numbers are decreasing on their traditional breeding sites, and research is on-going to find out why. It would be terrible if they become scarcer. Most young families introduce their children to wildlife by feeding ducks at their local pond. Let’s hope that connection isn’t lost.
The second shock I had concerning ducks, was when my good friend Gary (pictured) appeared in the middle of mine and Dawn’s wedding breakfast two years ago (he did wait until after the main course was served – which was not duck!) and told me he was my #dailyduck for the day!
E is for … Egrets
There are two birds I have photographed more than any other; I have blogged on both of them in the past. Recently I blogged on Nuthatches, but back when I started blogging on here I did a blog on the next big thing. I had no idea when I blogged at the end of March 2012 about Great White Egrets following their closely related Little Egrets and becoming the next great colonisers of our waterways that a pair were already being trailer blazers at Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve. The natural expansion of Little Egrets still continues, and even in the five years I have been bird watching I have noticed a slow increase in the populations of the estuaries I frequent. They are wonderfully elegant white herons to observe, and can be really obliging when fishing near a hide window. A bit like me, when it comes to food being put in front of them the rest of the world can carry on around me regardless! I was lucky to see the Great White Egret that sometimes drops in at Goldcliff two years ago, but I haven’t seen one since. Hopefully 2014 will be the year I reacquaint myself with this bird.
F is for … Fox
To some this would be a controversial choice. Foxes get such bad press sometimes, but I think the majority of the public quite like the fox. I chose it for my F entry in my personal A-Z as it was the first photo of mine to feature on Springwatch. I took the photo featured here at Newport Wetlands after a long day wandering around the reserve. The fox had been seen around the reserve a number of times in the weeks before I visited. I had seen it from afar a few times on previous occasions, but this time it was only feet away from me, and rather intent on whatever it was it pounced on here. It was one of those lucky encounters which I tend to have regularly down at Newport. It was then made even better by managing to get the split second photo of it in mid pounce. Although not a one hundred per cent technically brilliant photograph it does capture the moment, which makes up for a little bit of blur. I added it to the Springwatch Flickr page and was delighted when they chose it to be featured on Unsprung. I have had two photos featured on the show in total, the other was the ant macro photo used in last week’s blog.
Foxes are stunningly beautiful animals, and the one that to me is an icon of the Welsh and British countryside. I would put it ahead of even the badger. My aunty used to have a family of foxes that lived at the bottom of her garden, and I remember being jealous of her when my mum used to tell me that Aunty Barbara had fox cubs playing on her lawn. We came close to having our own back garden fox in Llantwit Fardre when I lived there, and I did get one shot of it on my camera trap, but it was never to be.
I will return next week with the next instalment …
In the meantime G could be for Good Morning Wales. I appeared on there this week talking about the Big Garden Bird Watch results. You can hear me by clicking the link below. It will be on the BBC Radio Wales website until the 4th of April. I feature 53 minutes and 40 seconds in.
Good Morning Wales – Radio Wales
All images © Anthony Walton