back garden and bigwaters

There has always been Pheasants over our rear garden wall but its a long time since I have seen one as bonny as this,in fact there are two of them both are identical may be brothers perhaps??. quite striking plumage.

Bigwaters last week 

A dull grey morning greeted us with little of note on the water,turning our attention to the feeding station we had a brief visit by a solitary Siskin. Yellow hammers and Bullfinch were present in good numbers with the rest of the local suspects adding to the mornings outing.

                                                              Thanks for looking

                                                       Merry Christmas everyone.

Forgotten Post

Loch Ken was our starting point,and a trip to Ken Dee Marshes did not disappoint with the odd red kite overhead ,willow tit, nuthatch ,and a couple of red squirrels which are always a pleasure to watch.

As we made our way along the loch we stopped to watch some very professional anglers enjoying their match.

The Rhinns of Galloway was our final destination and I certainly did not expect to see this bird on the camp site,                                               put ya glasses on      Sun glasses that is.

Apparently this bird has been frequenting this site for the last two/three years,a small number of these Golden Pheasants were released in the Galloway area a number of years ago according to the RSPB.
A trip to Port Patrick is always nice where the Black Guillemots are the stars in the harbour

                                                          Thanks for looking.

Help please

Could you call this bird a Leucistic Grey Partridge !!! photo taken today in field next to house along with six other normal coloured Grey Partridge

                                                            Shot of normal birds.

                        I would be pleased to hear any comments you may have regarding the above.

                                                                           Thanks  Joe.

Last week on the Moss

Leighton Moss that is.
Not the best of weather which is kind of normal for one of our outings.
Black-tailed Godwits were present in large number and put on some good shows here,s a few pics from the week.

Having spent a morning waiting for the bearded tits the previous day (no show)we were rewarded on day two with a pair coming for grit.

To be fair we were a little early for the grit trays as there were still plenty of insects about,as we only saw two separate pairs over the week.
Not a lot to see on our last day other than Godwits and lots of dragonfly's however our last walk round in the last hide produced this rather smart looking stag.

The stags headset is a twelve pointer which makes it a Royal ??.

ps
    look who,s watching!!!

Far pastures

A cold frosty morning is what greeted us along with a frozen lake,as we opened a couple of windows in the hide  peered through the bins the place appeared to be devoid of life.
It didn't seem worthwhile unpacking the camera (I thought) then I heard a couple of bursts from my mates camera I walked across the hide to see what he was shooting at ,and there was one of Britains top predators  MINK I think that explains why there was nothing about.

                                  The above pictures are by kind permission of my mate Bob .
we stayed a while longer watching red kites in the distance one carrying nesting material before moving on to the hide in Thornley woods.Three people in the hide when we arrived closely followed by another lady photographer who went out and recharged the feeding area with fat cake smeared on the logs and tree stumps.We spent an hour there watching the main takers of the fat cake pics below.

                                                                 Thanks for looking