Wilstone Grey Day – Mainly Ducks

Not the most exciting of times, early February, but it was to be dry in the main, so I gave it a try and drove down to Wilstone Reservoir,parking by the Cemetery Garden but I had no idea that the water level would be fairly high, meaning little chance of seeing waders across the water in front of the reeds at the near end. By the time I had reached this point toting the heaviest of my tripods it was too far to go back and change to a carbon fibre one.

It was a mistake that made travelling slow and I shall feel the effect on my back tomorrow for sure, but after taking a few shots of a heron amongst the reeds on the far shore, I decided I would make my way to the Hide (at the farthest point from where I started!) I did spot a young Grebe that was diving moderately close in shore, so stayed awhile to lessen the burden of the heavy tripod, before continuing.

I was alone in the Hide, and the least interesting birds, the Coots, were the closest visitors and the Lapwings the most distant, but eventually a few teal came moderately close as did some Wigeon, so it was considerable effort for little reward, so eventually having rested, I took the tripod and camera for the return trip, returning via the field path which was less muddy.

Wilstone Waders – Blacktailed Godwits and Other Birds

Not being a knowledgable person when it comes to naming wildlife, I simply spotted some interesting long-billed attractive Waders. Fortunately it was not long before a knowledgable birder soon came along equipped with a scope on a tripod, and after chatting briefly, I ventured the question and he supplied me with a name, he had his eyes upon a greenshank and had heard there was a pair of Osprey that had been spotted, and asked had I seen them. I had to reply that I would only have known had someone said: “Oh! Look at those Ospreys.” He did say there were a large number of Lapwings, and I did spot those and fortunately also know what they looked like.

As I arrived I had seen an Egret overfly, but it was before I had set up, I climbed down the bank and sat at the bottom, so that I was less conspicuous than being on top of the bank and silhouetted against the sky, and braced the monopod to the ground so that the camera came neatly to my eye and began taking shots as the godwits came  inexorably closer, dipping their long beaks into the water every couple of seconds; this meant that getting shots of a group with all heads above water and in an attractive grouping was ‘interesting’! There was a young grebe together with its parent, doing short length dives

There were times when I did forego using the tripod and opted for using the camera handheld and using manual focus, this was for the shots of birds, such as the terns in flight, as it was quicker if I focussed rather than let autofocus hunt and miss the shots altogether. Had the sun been out more often and brighter, I could have set the lens at the hyperfocal distance and at less than full aperture; but those conditions did not prevail on this occasion.

It was yet another successful gallery of pictures from this excellent Tamron lens – the 150-600mm

College Lake – Greylag and Lapwings

Armed with my 100-400mm lens a short visit to College lake near Bulbourne seemed like a reasonable choice to make. Due to the excessive rains this year the pathway beyond the octagonal hide was flooded, so I took a chance that the hide might just allow me to get some shots.

The first to come my way were a pair of swooping Lapwings, and as I watched I began to get some idea of what was happening, as it seemed as if it was often the female who landed on the spit just beyond the hide and who was then dive-bombed by the male, but this was only supposition my part as I am not a clued-up bird watcher.

I decided I would try to capture what I took to be their mating ritual as the female would display on the ground, than as the male swooped she would squat lower as if in submission, and then they would fly off together for a while before she would land again and seem to repeat the action. I may have misinterpreted it all as the pair flew again together for a while before they went their separate ways and the female flew to an islet and started drinking casually as if she were no longer interested.

The greylag geese which interrupted these goings on announced their departure in typically raucous hooting and I managed to get a reasonable grouping of three in flight, as well as an earlier singleton landing on the water. In the milky sunshine, another pair made interesting reflections on the water as flew by.