Christmas week

Being Christmas week I have only managed a few short walkabouts, so below are some images that I have taken over the past week, a few more days and I will back to my normal walkabouts.

There have at times been up to 8 Goosanders on Captain's Pool these past few days, unfortunately too far out for me to get a decent image,

Around the fields have been the regular birds but I hope to be able to see some winter migrants soon, we do get some huge flocks of small birds and it wouldn't surprise me to see something interesting in those flocks, I shall keep looking in hope.

Okay now for a few images.

Finding gold in the field

Only a short walkabout this morning, started off dull, had a stroll up to the top of the carrot field, found £2.25 just lying in the field, quite a few birds about at the top, as usual the fieldfare was there

a quick stroll along Stonechats Lane where I saw lots of starlings and crows, plenty of chaffinches and goldfinches kept me company, been struggling with neuralgia the past few days, so didn't stay out long, walking back by the paddocks  I saw two female bullfinches and a wren.

Went back out late afternoon for the hour before sunset, got a new extension for my remote so decided to give the pentax along with the 50-200 a treat in the sunshine, this camera is capable of 21 frames a second but quality is very poor if a crop is needed, hence photos below are not the best.

Couple shots of a Dunnock

Robin peeking at me

and a great tit coming in to land

Conclusion is that for the pentax I need to be looking at a 300mm prime lens and then this camera could be very useful, but for tomorrow it will be back to the Canon and the big lens.

Last shot with the pentax to end the day.

Sunset over the Abberley Hills from Spennells.

Foggy morning

An early start this morning, not for a walk though, off into town to get the food shopping sorted for Christmas, was hoping to avoid the rush, wrong!

Anyway I finally managed to get out for my walkabout around 10am, very foggy morning, but still enjoyed a wander round, struggling with Neuralgia so was well wrapped up and didn't stay out too long.

Here's how Captain's Pool looked

Knew as soon as I left the house I wasn't going to get any decent photos, but would be interesting to see what was about.

Don't know much about fungus but this little clump looked interesting.
Possibly wood ear fungus?

First bird was a robin.

Did see a few flocks of birds, lots of starlings, chaffinches, skylarks nd crows, saw s few jays and plenty of great tits, got a very poor image of a female bullfinch but no sign of the males.

Couple of shots of the misty trees

On the walk back I saw a redwing, a greater spotted woodpecker and a fieldfare and this squirrel who stopped to pose for his picture.

Sadly no sign of any raptors, possibly one over the paddocks but too misty to tell for sure, hopefully better weather tomorrow.

small walkabout

Grand-children day but managed to get a short walkabout in, a bright sunny morning but it didn't last very long, the cloud soon rolled in.

Basically walked the circumference of the carrot field, I did spot a kestrel flying low over the field, must have spooked the birds because I didn't see much else, a few chaffinches, the usual tits, lots of blackbirds and crows, surprised not to see a jay especially as they have been so active over the past month or so.

Did see a couple of nuthatches in the reserve neat to Captain's but too quick for me to get a photo, also saw a tree creeper in there but as the weather was dull as I was walking home I didn't even try to take a photo as it was too far away, plus I was already late for my return home.

I did take a few photos, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Here's a female blackbird.

Just hope my next visit is a lot better.

Walkabouts up till Dec 19th 2017

A collective round up of my walkabouts round the Spennells fields and a few photos of my bird sightings.

Pleased to see my first bullfinch around the carrot field a couple of weeks ago and more than happy to get several photos of them, interesting that since then I have seen a pair of males quite often but to date only seen 1 female.

Other notable birds but no photos are kestrels, buzzards and sparrowhawks.

Birds which I have managed to get photos of recently are skylark, starlings, linnets, reed buntings, meadow pipit, chaffinch, goldfinch, wren, jay, robin, crow, sparrow, brambling, dunnock.

Hopefully I will now list what birds I see as I go along, I do try to get 3 or 4 walkabouts a week, but with the short days some of my walks tend to be very short.

If I do list a bird with the wrong name then I do hope someone will tell me, only getting into bird photography some 6 months ago I class myself as a complete beginner.

And down came the snow

December 8th 2017, down came the snow.

A few walkabouts, cold and wet but I enjoyed wandering round with the camera, 99% of these photos are taken with the Canon bridge camera.