Forest of Dean part two

 Just some of the Mandarin Ducks we saw while having a cup of coffee at the Dean Heritage Centre.

Durham Moors

 A drive around the Durham Moors at the beginning of the month produced one or two canny birds.

Female Pied Flycatcher.

Linnet.

Meadow Pipit with some tasty treats its chicks.

Ministry of silly walks.

Not totally sharp but Meadow Pipits having a mid-air confrontation.

One of them settled down.

Distant Buzzard.

Rabbit.

Forest of Dean part one

 We have just returned home from a week’s holiday in the Forest of Dean. We were staying in a fantastic cottage called Apple Tree Barn just outside Blakeney near to all the hotspots for Wild Boar which is one of the reasons we went there. Unfortunately, we did not see any despite very early mornings and late evenings looking for them in various places. However, in the coming Blogs you will see what we did see. It was late afternoon when we arrived at the cottage and after unpacking the first thing I did was to have a walk along the lane that ran along the back of the cottage to see what was about. After that I sat on the patio with a glass of wine and tried to get some shots of the swallows that were hawking the fields.

One of the only things I spotted along the lane was this Flower Crab Spider.

There were dozens of Marmalade Hoverflies.

Swallows from the patio.

St Aidan’s

 Just back from holiday so trying to catch up. If I can I will try to do a relatively local Blog in-dispersed with a holiday Blog. Anyway, at the end of last month my wife and I had a trip down to St Aidan’s just outside of Leeds. The birds were great and so was the weather although this time we unfortunately didn’t see Bittern (we did however hear a few) or Black-necked Grebe it was still a great day out though.

Loads of Sedge Warblers were singing in the reeds.

Reed Warbler.

Shoveler.

Common Tern with Little Ringed Plover.

Common Tern.

Gadwall.

Black-headed Gull with nesting material.

Great Crested Grebe displaying.

Graylag chick.

Blue-tailed Damselfly.

We stopped off at a pub on the way back home and this female Grey Wagtail was taking insects back to its young.