As we were down in the Rutland area visiting sister-in-law and staying in Kettering, we had a free day today so headed over to Stanwick Lakes which is in the Nene Valley area of Northamptonshire. The area is geared for all manner of outdoor pursuits for family and walkers and although the one or two bird hides on site are not the best we've ever seen (to put it mildly ! ) it was still an interesting area to explore set amongst old disused gravel pits, now a series of lakes which stretched for miles. They have had such birds recently as 3 Cattle Egret, Bearded Tits as well as L.Egret, G.Herons and seems to be a popular place for Green Woodpeckers too which we heard and managed to see one at distance. The day was pretty dull on the whole so not great for photography although it wasn't really the priority as we just wanted to see what this area was like and I'm sure we'd go back if we were in the area again.
Here's a few pics I did manage to take although had to hard crop most of them.
The Visitor Centre with shop and café
This little beauty was one of several dotting around the trees/bushes....in the less open areas. As always, very hard to keep up with these fidgety little blighters
In this same area of the Adventure Trail ……… I also spotted a Chiffchaff as well as "Lollipops" ……….
There must have been dozens of LTT's but most too distant or silhouetted to capture on camera ….
Grey Herons were also in abundance
pity about the gloomy grey sky but at least the rain held off
Great Crested Grebe showed a little better on one of the many lakes ..
Tufted duck, one of half a dozen seen
Ormanental fish sculpture on one of the lakes
I heard and saw Redwings but once again too distant for photos - this is record shot
This huge nature reserve area was pretty quiet with visitors on the whole and for much of the time we wandered around not seeing a soul, however, as I'm sure you've all experienced, the minute you see something a bit more special …………. somebody comes along with mobile to their ear and walks right in the path of what you are trying to capture on camera spooking the bird into flight and away !!! oh well, I did manage to capture a distant shot before it shot off . Pity really as it had been quite happy foraging and I was slowly edging my way closer at the time to get a much better view and pic. It didn't move until the lady with mobile was within 3 metres of it
this was before Miss mobile came along lol
and as we were almost back at the VC I spotted a "funny wabbit" looked a bit strange so not sure if it just had bulging cheeks or something was wrong with it.
Nice set of photos Hazel, and somewhere I need to put on my 'places-to-visit' list, especially as it looks fairly easy to get to for a days jaunt, just down the M1 and along the A45.