Nice surprise

 A visit to the members hide this afternoon produced a nice surprise and a first for me on the pond in all the years i have been going there.

A flash past the front of the hide first thoughts was Sparrow hawk which i thought landed in the tree off to the left but further investigation proved it to be a Little Owl wow never seen one here before,here,s a few pics.

Shortly after that a pair of Mistle Thrushes landed in the same tree and started calling.

All together a nice afternoon

Thanks for looking 

Stay Safe

Joe.

Red Flanked Bluetail.

 Another tip-off from Paul C saw me driving down to w/bay to view the RFB along with twenty or more other birders ,high up in the tree canopy and being kept on move by the resident Robin it wasn't easy for me to get many usable images at all but here's the best of my bunch .

Very nice to see again .

Thanks for looking and

STAY SAFE.

Joe

Spoony on the pond

 A phone call from Paul C had me making a quick dash down the pond as a Spoonbill was on the island ,this is a first for me on the pond i believe it to be a juvenile bird as it is still carrying its black tipped primary feathers,here is a few pics and bifs as it left heading south east.

Thanks for looking

Stay Safe

Joe.

Wet and dry

Its hard to believe these are more than likely to be the same bird.

Holywell pond 

A couple of nice surprises this week with a Marsh Harrier (cream crown ) giving it the once over,its been seen a couple of times now.

Not the best of pics above..

A more secretive bird now living up to its reputation ,unlike Northumberland Park last year!.

Still nice to have around and keep an eye out for.

Thanks for looking

Stay safe

Joe.

 

A quiet week on pond

 A very quiet week indeed with little or nothing in the way of waders ,this could be part of the reason why.

 

Plenty of fighting going off as well 

I was zoomed in to the limit with the above pics

Activity on the pond at present seems to centre around Lapwings and Geese

My best for the week was 2 Snipe and  1 Dunlin quite disappointing.

Unfortunately that carried on at home with this fella waiting for me !

Quiet at home  now.!!

Thanks for looking and stay safe.

Joe

Holywell pond

 Spent a few mornings on the pond this week in an attempt to catch up with whats about.This morning there were 171 Canada geese the most Canada's I have seen in a long time ,over the week there were 4 Ruff, 7 Dunlin,1 Greenshank, 1 Redshank,2 Little Egrets,5 Snipe 2com buzzards,2 ring plovers and a Curlew that needed a good beak rinse!The Ruff ,Dunlin and Egrets travel between here and the flash to the east, here's a few pics.

                                                                        Nose dive

                                             It had more mud on beak when it landed  

                                                                            Ruff

                                                           Dunlin in the feathers

                                                           A smart Greenshank

                                              And last but not least Egret in the feathers

                                                                 Thanks for looking 

                                                     Stay safe (the numbers are rising )                                             

                                                                                Joe.

A wet Mull

Two weeks on Mull saw us struggling with the weather,three and a half dry days is what we had in two weeks .Prior to leaving home I had booked the last place on the eagle boat trip for the Friday afternoon of our first week ,we awoke to a dry morning and has we had no phone signal made an early start to the Ulva ferry ,the morning trip hadn't left as we arrived so we watched the people go aboard and asked the lad what time the afternoon trip was to depart ,in the event I managed  to get on the morning trip as a couple hadn't turned up ( so pleased I did ) here,s a few pics.

                                                              Just having a look.

another look

I'm on it

The grab

Gotcha ( am in there somewhere ?)

I'm off.

We saw seven different Eagles that morning which made for a great trip (just brilliant ).

Thanks for looking

Stay safe

Joe.