The Forest of Dean part eight

 The final part of our holiday to the Forest of Dean and I have combined two days into one Blog. The first day saw my wife and I visit Symonds Yat where I took loads of photos of the view on my phone but only a few with the camera and they consisted of a couple of distant Peregrines and a Buzzard. The second day started at New Fancy Viewpoint in the hope of seeing Peregrines and Goshawk we didn’t see either. Then it was on to NT Westbury Court Gardens and finally Soudley Ponds.

A distant Peregrine at Symonds Yat.

A second distant Peregrine.

A distant Buzzard.

Chiffchaff from New Fancy Viewpoint.

A couple of Crossbill from the same place.

Emperor Dragonfly from Westbury Court.

These fish at Westbury Court must be used to being hand fed as they came to the surface the moment anyone walked by.

Bumblebee coming into land.

 Aphids being farmed by Ants for their honeydew.

Green Dock Beetle.

Red Kite above a café that we stopped at to have a coffee.

Red-eyed Damselfly at Soudley Ponds.

Large Red Damselfly with bait.

Pond Skater also with bait.

If you don’t look too closely these images of a young Pied Wagtail catching Damselflies look quite sharp.

Female Mandarin.

Male Mandarin.

Pied Wagtail.

Female Emperor laying eggs.

The same female only this time eating on the wing.

Bempton Cliffs

 I can’t believe its nearly two weeks since we were down at Bempton Cliffs how time flies when you are getting older. Speaking of which a couple of things have made me feel old recently. As some of you who look at this Blog may know I have just had a second knee replacement and the first thing to make me feel old was when I went to see the consultant about the knee. As I was about to leave his office after being discharged his parting words were “those new knees will see you out” not something you want to hear just ten days before a very significant birthday. Before we went to Bempton Cliffs we stopped off at Wykeham Forest to see if we could spot any Goshawk. The Forestry Commission have been carrying out some work down there and unbeknown to us the paths to the watch point are nearly unpassable and this is where the second thing that made me feel old comes in. While we were in the car park, we got talking to a gentleman who told us about the paths and the state they were in and he said and I quote “no disrespect but looking at your ages I don’t think you will be able to make it to the viewpoint.” Well, that was like a red rag to a bull and yes, we might have had to climb over fallen trees and logs and avoided deep muddy puddles and all manner of other things but we made a determined effort and in the end we got there (and back). We unfortunately didn’t see any Goshawk in the two hours we were there but hey ho.

The only thing we saw from the watchpoint was a Crossbill.

And a couple of Buzzard were flying over the car park when we got back.

It was then onto Bempton Cliffs where I saw my first Puffins of the year.

The Gannets are amazing to watch as they glide around the cliffs.

Razorbill.

And I tried my hand at flight shots of the Razorbills

And Guillemots.

There were also a few Kittiwake.