Quick pics from Tatton Park

What a beautiful day it was with sunshine, blue sky and not a hint of a breeze so we headed to our local Tatton Park.    Although deer rut is at the end we saw plenty of red stags and also fallow along with a few surprises …...

most of the Stags were laying down enjoying a rest in the sunshine 

this stag was well camouflaged against the fallen timber.  

despite the Tatton deer being exceptionally tolerant of humans,  it was still surprising to see how stupid some folk can be when approaching these huge animals shortly after the main rutting season …..…….  she was one lucky lady and her group as the stag remained calm even when she stood next to his antlers  !     

I have blurred the faces to protect their ID        Cannot believe she would approach it as if it were a pet dog

anyway, I continued to use my handy zoom lens and extender at reasonable distance as I didn't fancy any piercings  !!

couldn't really get the fallow deer as the herd took flight when 3 people with dogs spooked them and they ran at amazing speed through the woodland and pasture

they reached the other side of the meadow in record speed and just to prove they are able jumpers you can just make out them leaping the fence 

A common buzzard flew overhead although it still took me a while to get the AF locked on to the target with my rubbish eyesight  Disappointed

Next we found not one but two Green Woodpeckers however, with so many dogs in the park they were unsettled so had to grab what I could before they took flight 

think it spotted the buzzard   lol

Mike spotted a little bird in the long dried grass near some pools;   turned out to be a beautiful female Stonechat …..

and although this shot is in my rubbish bin  - I dragged it out to show you a flock of Snipe had flown in very briefly ……...once again too many dogs and they took off.

very hard cropped shot as I must have been over 200 metres away at the time and all I wanted was to try get a record shot to zoom in and see if I could ID them 

here are two out of the flock ……………….    think top one proves it is a snipe with the back plumage  ?

and although I didn't really search on the two meres these Canada's grabbed my attention as one was calling ……...