Odds & Sods 2023

One hurried arrival on the feeder today.  A couple of House Sparrows I think. 

Take care all.

Ed

Hi BD, I didn't know if you knew about the pips, but glad you do! I don't skin the apples because I put them on the ground, but it's a good idea for the feeder. Let me know how you get on... There are a couple of my neighbours along the street who have golden retrievers, they are gorgeous dog! Yes, I know what you mean about the company of Billy and loving him to bits. I sadly just lost my cat at the end of January, and I had to watch her die! No emergency vets near me on a Sunday.... been a lot of complaints about that. Anyway, still recovering from the trauma of that experience (it was very sudden...she was only about 12). For some reason I now have tadpoles! With no pond lol. Anyway, I hope the apple thing works out for you

Lol

Long post. Brew up, biccies at the ready, get comfy in chair.

Same walk as last week, simply to reinforce the route in the old girl's mind. I was under strict instructions to not help her.

Both Met Office and BBC weather claimed day was going to be overcast, with possibility of rain at later stages of our walk. I decided not to take long lens or rubbish bridge camera. Took 300mm lens instead. The day started misty (as both sites claimed) but mist and cloud cleared. Computer models completely wrong.

As an aside, the Met Office used to be based in Bracknell. I always thought it nuts that they would post an incorrect forecast for the day for the area, as all they had to do was look out of an office window to see what was happening, and then correct their website accordingly. But nope, often we've had current forecast of heavy rain, whereas it was bright sunshine, with not a cloud for tens of miles.

We start on the final stretch of our walk, as we head up a long hill towards St James's church. Alongside footpath is a well known bit of land in which has a glorious display of Bluebells in spring. The tract of land is quite large, and is fenced off with a tall fence. The latter is good, as it stops numpties trampling over the site, destroying the bluebells, as they seek the perfect selfie.

Jumping completely out of sequence, we jump back to the beginning. As the Memsahib was putting on her boots ( I wore mine in car - risking her wrath), I set about photographing anything of interest.

Fox fodder.

It definitely will be fox fodder if it keeps closing its eyes.

Anyway, it didn't doze long, and soon set about munching somethig.

What is is munching, we wonder?

Here you go, cropping out for adorable view of bunny wunny.

Stepping back for a shot of what it was eating.

Cowslip are out. I did grow some in garden, once. Not sure what happened to it. Will have to give it another whirl.

There wasn't much wildlife out and about within the first half mile of walk. It was early in morning, still cool and overcast, with a little mist. Anyway, one crucial way marker for the old girl, is a rather interesting Victorian (I think) house, with even more interesting roof ornaments.

Here be dragons.

Dragon slayer Blue Tit

You can add your own interpretation on this photo.

Dragon with a cold. Dribbly nose.

There wasn't much to be seen, as we traipsed through Simon's wood, thence up to Finchampstead Ridge, and along to Moor Green Lakes. I could hear lots of birds singing, but hidden; or flitting across footpath. Frustrating.

Exiting Moor Green Lakes car park, we walk along a field to the north of Colebrook lake, where there are some reliable animals to be photographed. 

Dobbin 1

Dobbin 2

The old girl gave me strict instructions to stop and photograph. The reason is that her walking group, which she is leading: dawdle, stop to look at things, look information up on their mobiles, etc, etc, etc.

With this in mind, we made our way down to the viewing screens next to Colebrook lake north hide. We didn't stay too long, as all the usual suspects were on Colebrook lake north, light conditions weren't brilliant, and there were no interesting subjects.

This Great Crested Grebe caused me a little amusement.

It must have got goosed by summat under water.

Feathers de-ruffled. Keep calm and keep swimming as if nothing happened.

I just missed the take off run.

Glide

I always felt that Canada geese look like Imperial Guard Land Speeders, when they are like this.

Plover island in the background.

Tern island hove's into view in the foreground, with Plover island to the back. Nearest Canada goose is more like Imperial Guard Land Speeder in its pose.

Whizzing past Tern Island. The white, translucent box structure is a floating pontoon. It was moored against a bank on the north side of Colebrook lake, along with another pontoon. Some local yobs decided it was a wheeze to cut them loose, where they floated out to the lake. MGLG decided not to send a boat out to retrieve and re-position the pontoons, as breeding was in full swing.

As the birds approach the west edge of Colebrook lake north, they would have to start pulling up to get over a line of trees.

Well, off they go, gaining altitude to fly over trees to cross over to Manor farm restoration.

Again, nothing of interest was to be seen or stayed still long enough to be photographed, until we got one third the way west along the Manor farm restoration on the Blackwater valley footpath. I spied a smallish bird, right at the top of a birch tree.

At first I thought it might have been a Skylark, as the trill of their song was coming from the approximate direction of the bird in the tree. Zooming in a little.

At full 300mm, recognise the bird yet?

Cropping out yields a Robin. I was quite surprised. I didn't think they like to sing so high up a tree.

This bird flashed across us, high in sky, before banking right. I managed a couple of shots. A Goosander, I reckon.

Further along, a Dunnock was polite enough to stop and pose for a brief moment.

Cropping out for a closer look

As we approached the Finchampstead (or is it Eversley) sewage works, we encountered the two swans we saw last week.

Though, water levels had risen a bit, due to heavy rain on Friday.

Interesting that one is so much bigger than the other.

And now, dear reader, the infamous, and sometimes extremely smelly, sewage works I've mentioned. One of these Carrion Crow was perched on a pole. A brilliant shot for 'Fabulous fenceposts'. Unfortunately it flew off, and called out a warning cry.

A whole load of Carrion crows erupted from the sewage works. There's obvious good eating to be had at the sewage works. You'll have squint to see the crows in this photo. About half their number had already legged it.

Some braver souls did hang around a bit longer.

Lapwing seeing off crow. The Lapwing are kept very busy seeing off intruders.

Crossing over into Fleet Hill farm part of reserve, we took a slight detour from last week's walk, choosing to follow a bridle path south and around south lake, rather than stick to the footpath and head west. Less swampy on bridle path.

This Jackdaw was busy to the right of the bridle way.

It allowed us to get only so close, before off it went

I tracked it as best I could with my Canon 800D.

The camera did a fair job of sort of focusing on the Jackdaw, though to be fair, it is a very busy background.

One lone Buzzard circled quite close, all things considered. Not close enough for my 300mm lens. Sigh.

On the other side of the Blackwater river, in a large meadow, was a male Roe deer both feeding and keeping a beady eye on me.

Heading north, we passed alongside a lake I christened Swan lake. 'cause all we used to see on it were Mute Swans. Not today. A couple of Great Crested Grebe, quite close to the shore, with one have a good scratch.

I mean, just look at that face. That must have been one hell of an itch.

Sadly, nothing more was to be seen until we got back to St James's church - well, apart from the Bluebells. I did photograph some Celandines. I do like these flowers. So happy.

Well, that's it folks.

A couple of minutes to go before the first test of national mobile phone alert. Exciting!

I had to edit this post, just after the alert, as some of the images didn't upload properly. I liked the alert except...why an annoying, nasal American accent?!?!?

This one insisted on being photographed:

Thanks DB for this beautiful photo of an absolutely gorgeous little Robin!! One of my favourite birds...... imagine it just sitting there waiting for you to take it's picture!!! Just too cute

Thanks Tigerss. It was sitting on a branch right next to the path and didn't budge at all when I came along. I had to step off the path on the other side to take the photo because it was too close!

Just out of interest, do my photographs look to dark? My laptop has a display which I feel makes photos look washed out. I have to fiddle a bit with FastStone (freebie image processor) to make them look acceptable on my laptop. This might make them look too dark and bright on other computer screens.

Back to our program. After my identification debacle with is it a Cetti's warbler or Chiffchaff, I leave it to experts to ID this one.  It was high up in a tall oak tree, and I had to 'thread a needle' (so to speak) to photograph the thing through lots of small twigs.

Now a shot of what the thing presented me with most of the time

On much firmer ground, even I can recognise these ducklings, even without mum marshalling them from behind.

I wonder if the size difference represents staggered egg laying, with oldest at front and youngest at rear? I know the rear most duckling might be crouching down a bit. Or is the size difference an optical illusion?

I believe its a Common Whitethroat Angus but then I ain't an expert lol....
Photos are fine viewing on my tablet with the brightness up full lol