The deer stalking and photography has been somewhat slim pickings lately. There have been a few sightings but nothing that warrants a blog post. So, as an alternative this post is all about birds!
The first selection are from the garden. We had a flurry of snow, but that didn’t deter the usual visitors. It does give a different perspective and perhaps a more interesting look though, (capturing them in the snow). We currently have a ‘volery’ of long tailed tits visiting the feeders. Yes, the collective term for them is a volery. Who knew (until I googled it)!
It’s good to see the woodpecker is still coming. It’s very likely to be a juvenile that was a regular visitor the past year. Then there’s coal tits and blue tits. A dunnock, blackbird and robin. You can’t have a winter/snowy collection of bird photos without a robin!
These and all the other photos in this blog are in a carousel, so please scroll through to see them all.
The next selection are from the Northumberland coastline. We spent the New Year there, staying in a nice market town called Alnwick. Fortunately it only rained one day, so we managed to get out for a couple of coastal walks. One from Beadnell and the other from Alnmouth. I’m certainly no expert on birds, especially so with coastal ones, so it was a case of take some photos and then look up as to what they are.
The selection below includes turnstone, godwit, redshank, ring tailed plover, sanderlings and oyster catcher. The sanderlings are fun to watch. They scurry around quite fast in and out of the tide.
And finally, a few from a trip out to St.Aidans RSPB nature reserve, a very popular place. This reserve is about 45 minutes from home. We decided to go out for a few hours, to give the campervan a run-out mainly.
It didn’t look like there was going to be much to see, apart from ducks and geese! No offence to them, but hardly worth a visit out for. However, we stopped briefly to talk to a guy who was obviously a serious twitcher and he was on the lookout for bearded tits. I do know what these are and I’d love to see them myself. They’re a very colourful bird, quite different from others in the tit family. Well, would you believe it but a group of them arrived! Unfortunately, my photos aren’t the best quality as they were a bit too far in the reeds for my camera lens. But still, it was good to have a record of seeing them.
The banner photo at the top of the page is a long tailed tit, taken at St.Aidans.
