Anybody there ???
I'll just ramble on to myself then.
Back again today and lucky enough to see a dipper in the stream at the bottom of the bank (many thanks to the couple who alerted me to it). I've been experimenting with my digital video camera which zooms up to about 25X and gives surprisingly good quality pictures as long as the subjects stay reasonably static. Got some good video of nuthatches and great tits at the feeder and would have had better of a pied flycatcher by the pond if I could have figured out how to bypass the autofocus, That one was a bit blurry but I'll try again next time. The flycatchers are good subjects as they return to the same perches and stay fairly still. There were a few around the pond and on the other side of the bridge today
I'll try and post some video but I'm not sure of the file type or size I can use on here.
Also near the pond I was talking to another visitor when we saw two warblers have a brief fight after which one of them flew back into the bush and perched with it's wings outstretched, flicking them in the direction of its rival for a couple of minutes, not behaviour I've seen before.
Other highlight today a nice close up view of a great spotted woodpecker on the path down to the first bridge and I'm sure I heard a tawny owl up in the woods. Still looking for the redstarts though!
Hi there johno,
Thanks for all these great sightings, would be great to see your videos on here.
I was out on a guided walk today and had a great view of a male redstart singing really loudly. We'd just past the first bridge and gone through the gate on the left before the meadow. Only gone a short way up the steps and looked across to the meadow on the right and there he was in the top of a tree. It was my first redstart sighting and great to watch it singing away for a few minutes.
We carried on up the path and could hear redstart song almost the whole way round.
Another good bet for redstarts is at Clough meadow and around the cottage. Hope that helps!
Heather
(Residential Volunteer)
Hi Heather,
Thats what I like about birdwatching, those unexpected moments that stop you in your tracks.
It will be a couple of weeks before I can get back up again, hopefully they'll all be well into nesting by then. I wish I lived a bit closer so I could just nip down when I wanted but at least it gives me time to relearn some of the birdsongs.
I've downloaded some video onto my laptop but the file sizes are huge, I'm not sure what file type to convert to for posting on here. The short clip of the nuthatch on the feeder is really nice.
cheers
Chris