All round the houses

(CLICK ON A PIC AND IT WILL GO BIG)

It's been a while what with one thing and another such as Christmas and all that but the EFRS found a window and jumped head long through it. Luckily it was on the ground floor and a tramp had conveniently left his rather worryingly odd stained king size memory foam mattress on the pavement outside and it hadn't rained the night before. But I digress wildly. The wait for James in the carpark was a bit odd. I was wondering whether to nip back in and grab my gyno lens to get the numerous bees and hover flies in the blooms. My four layers of warmth were beginning to feel a little extreme.

Then we were off. Erm well to the round about anyway. We stopped, looked at each other, looked at the three exits available and then realised we had no idea where to go. No biggy we were in the car so a back and forth sort of meander around the houses could be done. Catcott was the first. We were off. While there were quit a lot of birds minding their own business there was little activity. I concentrated on the manualfocusuk.com stuff instead.

Wigeon in flight

Where to now? Why make life easy for ourselves. Why not go over the hills and head to Greylake. Always a good bet and will probably see a few familiar faces.

It was while passing through Street that I had what can only be described as a vision! There is a park you pass on the A39. I glanced onto it as I drove and I will swear on my whole Takumar collections life that I saw good friends Mike Tout and his beloved Carolyn along with their pooch Scamp. They were close to the road both looking up at one of the trees and holding their bins against their chests. Gone in a flash I was still convinced. We stopped and tried to find the entrance to get into the park. It took a while. A lot of housing estates later we found it but they were gone. No sign what so ever, not even the campervan. Was it them? was I seeing things? Too much mince pies and port? Are you reading this Mike? Was that you? If you know anything please contact this guy...........

Parking up at Greylake the first thing we say were a couple of vaguely familiar faces. A couple of guys who you could say were kindred spirits. We wont mention any names, not for security reasons and to maintain an air of enigmatic mystery but purely because we can't for the life of us remember what their names are. But you know who you are. The 'front man' or the one who does all the talking, or doesn't shut up didn't shut up about Eavis, MP's, Blue Throats and Snipes on the reserve. The other one with dodgy facial hair and not in a hipster sort of way remained as silent as always. Silent but deadly judging by his escapades which will remain our little secret. Alter egos perhaps?

Things went a bit hush hush when, after a couple of wheel spins on the gravel carpark just to get our attention, Lord Morrison turns up right on cue. His mission today was to go right to the other end of the reserve where most of the action usually happens. We left him to it, left the chuckle brothers and headed off to the platform hide.

You will note that both James and myself just happen to have taken pretty much the same pictures. I'll leave them all in because, well we're both worth it!!

Snipe

 Peregrine for 1000 miles away

My take on the Peregrine at 1000 miles

 Marsh Harrier from 999 miles away

I managed to get the pair of Marsh Harriers together. James noticed that one had something in its talons. He wasn't wrong. They were playing with a bulrush head!

Fun over and back to the serious stuff

Lapwings

Golden Plovers Black Tailed Godwits

A mixed bag

I do love Lapwings, possibly my second favourite bird. They are so neurotic and fly up at the slightest hint of a sparrows fart. They look so seventy's to. Those wide flared wings. But get them displaying and not a lot beats it for agility. Swooping down doubling back and just touching the wing tip on the water with a beautiful call to boot. A bird that just keeps on giving. With that in mind I went for the money shot of a wing tip on the water. One patch seemed to be their favourite so I took aim

Almost but no cigarette

 Wigeon

 Teal

Shoveler

Swans getting in on the act

Spot the Peregrine?

Just playing with them

So that was enough fun for now. We needed some desolate drama. I also needed some more manualfocusuk.com fun. You can see the results over on that site or clicking the logo up on the right hand side while James hunted for Short Eared Owls. We headed back again to the other side and to Tealham Moor. Nice and quiet but little to see except these Starlings waiting for the cue to head off to the rave in the reeds.

You know when your driving along and you see a perfect opportunity to snap a bird of prey that's just sitting there minding its own business in a tree or post right next to the road? We all know what happens don't we. Stop and crawl along or wind down that window and its gone! We did the opposite. I span the wheels and floored it towards this Kestrel that James had spotted ahead. It was looking the wrong way. A big blast on the horn soon got its attention. James snapped and got this peach of a pic. Did it fly off? Did it buggery. Sat there tutting and cursing the local yooff before looking for another small cute furry thing to rip to pieces.

Kestrel captured using the driver and gunner method

Walking along the old railway track at Hamwall just doesn't seem right. We should be cycling. We could have been at VP2 by now. Bloody 'ell it's a long way isn't it

James took this rather nice watery sun pic however it's not allowed in the manualfocusuk.com bit since it's auto focus. AUTOFOCUS ON THE SUN........  AUTOFOCUS ON THE SUN!!!!!! WHY!!!!!!

Same with this one

I was manfuk ing* at Hamwall so here's James' pics of the Starlings. We camped between VP1 and 2. I had a vibe that they would be coming down there. We waited and waited. Lots of people passed back and forth. Then we were alone. For good reason. The starlings went straight passed and headed to Shapwick. We saw a few glimpses above the trees but that was all. I did see where Lord Morrison was at this point. After his little jaunt at Greylake he was tucked up with an Ovaltine and Tarquin (His bear). Poor mite!

Don't mind us, just passing through

James did get possibly the best photo opportunity to snap a Marsh Harrier as one flew directly over head. Just the small detail of there not being any light. Oh well!

The best silhouette of a Marsh Harrier you are likely to see

So it was a pretty good day really. Five Marsh Harriers and thousands of Plovers and Lapwings plus thousands of Starlings, sort of, plus dozens of other ducks and a smattering of Snipe. It's also a good one to wrap up the year. It's been a blast for the EFRS and has seen the birth of another blog, manualfocusuk.com If you haven't seen it pop over. See you all next year and thanks for reading!!

* The unofficial abbreviation we use for manualfocusuk.com Also a cheap way to be rude.

The Dark Side

Perhaps Darth Vader was right.  The dark side is very much in ascendance at the moment.  Indeed I don’t think I have seen much light at all in the last couple of weeks.  Not a problem if you are wielding a light sabre but much more difficult if you are taking photographs.

Despite the darkness I had to get out, it had been ages since I had gone anywhere (and, more importantly there were a trio of young, Christmas fueled children visiting the house meaning that escape was vital).

I quickly embarked into my T.I.E. fighter...

Well nearly...

I set my coordinates to the Catcott system, taking in the sights of Westhay on the way.

 Went a bit soft and arty.

 I'm over it now.  Lets continue.

At Catcott I quickly got distracted by a very friendly flock of Long Tailed tits, along with a Goldcrest.  Oh how the autofocus refused to work and oh how close birds came and oh how I cursed and muttered.

 If I was Darth Vader I would have used the force to throw heavy objects as these little buggers...

 He was terrified of my force powers and hid behind a stick.  An effective defense against an amateur photographer like me.

Inside the hide (which has lost some of its darkside power thanks to some clear sheets of plastic installed in the roof) I was greeted by lots of sleeping ducks.  As always I hoped that something might scare them a bit (after all a Peregrine is far to bad tempered to eat traditional Christmas fare and would quite happily tuck into a nice bit of duck).

I scanned the back of the reserve as a Peregrine has been spotted a lot in this area.  Sure enough, there he was.  Sitting on a lump of dead grass/reeds/Somerset Levels stuff.  Of course this meant that the ducks were not to bothered and just carried on sleeping.

Can you spot the Peregrine?

 (No prizes, at EFRS, just off beat humour and some occasional good photos)

Even further in the distance a Marsh harrier was flying low, it even made and attempt at what looked like a snipe.  But in true Marsh harrier fashion it missed and carried on floating along not catching anything.  However the ducks got a bit worried and started whistling, soon the Lapwing were up and then all the ducks did the same.

Its a Marsh Harrier in the dark, please refer to Robin Morrison's Flickr page for a good version of this

Moments later the Peregrine flew off, but in the wrong direction.  Clearly unimpressed by the Marsh harriers inability to ever catch anything.

Luckily for me the ducks settled quite close to the hide.  This Shoveller even kept its head out of the water for more than 0.00001 seconds meaning I could get a picture!

 Female Shoveller

and her husband

By now the darkside was surrounding me.  I decided that it was time to head off back to my Master in the cloud city of Wells.  Now doubt she had hatched another cunning plot involving silver baubles and carefully fashioned table decorations.

Although its Turkeys who are in trouble at this time I would keep your head down anyway...

 

Beware The Jubjub bird

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!” 

 Lewis Caroll 

    So, the Jabberwocky steals the show in the poem.  But he does get killed.  But the Jubjub bird survives along with the Bandersnatch.  Now, it is my belief that both of these creatures exist in Somerset...

    The Bandersnatch lives at Steart, (often mistaken for a Polecat).  Please see posts on the old Somerset Ornithological Society forum for confirmation.  Yes I did say Ornithological and no the Bandersnatch cant fly, but what can you do?

    Anyway enough of the Bandersnatch.  I'm here to talk about the Jubjub bird,  Now this creature lives at Greylake (so I am told).  Now such mystery and hearsay has been flamed by the likes of Robin .

    Here is a remarkably clear shot of the Jubjub bird taken by Robin (just in case you thought I took it - stop giggling at the back please)

The Jubjub bird Copyright Robin Morrison 

(I dont own or have any chance of taking a photo this good)

    Now this is NOT a Kingfisher.  It may look like one but then the Bandersnatch looks like a Polecat.  Oh no, this is very different indeed.  Unlike a Kingfisher these creature hovers like a Kestrel and note the cold, malicious glint in its black, pitiless eyes.  

    Unless  Robin is getting somebody to dangle a rubber Kingfisher with a bad attitude from the top of Greylake hide (which is possible) I think that this IS the Jubjub bird.

    So with this in mind I went out to Greylake.  The weather forecast was awful...

7PM ITV most nights.  If you've suddenly become interested in the weather forecast.

EFRS is a blog that just keeps on giving...

Despite the dire wind warnings I headed out anyway.  I headed through Polsham towards Godney as its a more scenic route (it also makes you car absolutely filthy).  I have been quite lucky on this road in the past.  Having seen Little Owl, Kestrel, Sparrowhawk and a Fox (definitely a Fox, not a Bandersnatch).

Today I saw a Kestrel at about 5 paces.  It was at on top of a hedge.  Like a particular large and fat bull in a China shop a screeched to a halt, adjacent to the confused looking bird, reached across and wound down the window, grabbed my camera from the back seat and actually got it in the view finder before it casually fluttered off a feet along the hedge.  The procession started again and to nobodies surprise I wasn't successful...

I took a quick detour to Tealham... and saw absolutely nothing.

Over at Greylake 2 GS Woodpeckers played me up a bit before getting bored.  I largely ignored the Blue tits on the feeders, mainly because I got some alright photos last time in the sunshine, these ones would only be worse.

In the hide I fully expected to be blown away as soon as I opened the window... Except I wasnt.  THE WIND WASNT BLOWING INTO THE HIDE!!!!! This has never happened ever in the history of hides.  A gentleman to my right reminded me why I was here.

He mentioned the "hovering" Kingfisher (Jubjub bird).  He was here to see it to.  Except there was no sight of it.  Perhaps Robin keeps it in a box and feeds it with minnows?

So i occupied myself with the large number of ducks milling about.  In another quirk of fate, most of them were awake and even flying about!

They were battling the wind a bit, but I wasn't.  Ha Ha!!!

Some were just waking up.

I kept an eye out for the Jubjub bird but still nothing.  Far in the distance a Marsh harrier was busily not catching anything.  Please check another post or even another blog for a good picture of a Marsh harrier because there isn't one here.

Then, suddenly all the ducks scattered.  The Jubjub bird must have arrived!!

Beware the Jubjub bird.  Peregrine.

The Peregrine shot about a bit.  Just being a badass. Like they do.

Its a Peregrine (just needs a bit of imagination and its a good picture...)

But the Peregrine wasn't done yet.  After scaring off all the ducks it decided to give a Buzzard a good drubbing.

Buzzard getting beaten up.

Calling in reinforcements.

I was all alone in the hide now.  I had little defense against the Jubjub bird if it decided to turn up.  Save for a cheaper end 500mm lens which could be used as an effective club.

I left the hide quite pleased with myself, although the Jubjub bird didnt appear I was pleased with the Peregrines and the ducks were pretty spectacular at times.

On the way back to the car, the Lapwings all took off.  Scared by...

 Could it be...?

Beware the Jubjub.