Todays pics inc Water Rail on Ice!

Left the house this morning undecided as to whether to go to Newport Wetlands or Slimbridge. Got to the Slimbridge turn of and decided to go on to Newport. Five minutes later it started snowing and I decided to go back to Slimbridge in case the snow started to get heavier - besides I didn't want to pay £6.20 to cross tyhe bridge if there was any danger of having to cut my day short(-:). Slimbridge was really strange as there was not a lot about - no waders in the usual places, and no ducks or geese where 6 days ago there was hardly any visible grass. I guess the fact that the ground and water were frozen had much to do with it and the tide was well on the way out in the estuary. 

First sighting was the 5th Buzzard of the day, the other 4 having been perched by the motorway - as ever.

The only thing on the Tack Piece area were Bewick's Swans - there was nearly an air traffic control issue.

This one was vdefinitely surprised at how hard the water was!

lenty of small birds about in the undergrowth:

Dunnock

haffinch

and a cute little Wren

Canada Geese flying from inland out into the estuary.

Mr Pintail doing some serious neck stretctching to Mrs Pintail

Grey Heron

Mr and Mrs Mandarin -

although the light was not good, I can at last see some of the colour that Mrs Mandarin has about her.

Teal

The Greylag were overly shy

ut not so the Moorhen.

The solitary Lapwing came closer to the hide, though he needs his bill washed. It's a shame there was no sunlight as he would have been irridescent at that range.

This Tufted Duck seems to nibbling at the edge of the ice.

I made my last visit to the Holden hide down by the estuary before leaving and called into the spot where there had apparently been a Water Rail showing. There had been no sign of it when I had been there earlier in the day and there was no sign of it this time. I called up to the Holden hide for a while but it was all quiet except for a mixed flock of Canada and Barnacle Geese. So I decided to head for home as the light was very poor even though it was only twenty past three. One last call at the area where the Water Rail was alleged to be  and bingo, what a lucky boy I was. It came right out into the open on the ice several times and I was able to get some shots and a couple of very short videos. I was shooting at f5.6, 1/50sec and ISO 640 so i have a lot of shots with motion blur head or tail or legs but fortunately some have come out reasonably well.

So thank you snow shower(-:).

Cheers,

Bob