My blog is mostly about wildlife, particularly birds, walking, days out, all growing things and anything else that comes to mind.
To view pictures in larger format, just click on any picture for the picture gallery....

Sunday 4 February 2018

West Dean gardens.. first visit of 2018 in glorious sunshine

West Dean Gardens opened again this month, after the winter break .. and the sun was shining so off I went.

En route there was a buzzard sitting in a tree at the road side.. by the time I stopped the car and grabbed the camera.. it was gone!

The wind was bitter, but it didn't matter as the sun was glorious.

Last time I visited there was no water in the stream as the aquifer hadn't enough water to feed it.... 


Today an entirely different scene.. the water was back and travelling fast .. it was wonderful.

Snowdrops, Crocuses, Winter Aconites, Daffodils, Hellebores.. all in bloom


Snowdrops, Winter Aconites and Crocuses all in bloom..




































































































I stopped at Benbow Ponds on the way home to see if the family of Egyptian Geese were still there.. they were!!  There were about 26 Egyptian Geese in total!!

Plus this bird.. not seen this at Benbow before!!

a greying Cormorant?


This goose seems to be a permanent resident!


Lovely day out..

1 comment:

bailey1409 said...

Hi Tricia

I think that the strange bird could be a Muscovy Duck. Not native. We had several "released" on to a local pond in the New Forest a couple of years ago. They were depleted in numbers over time as we believe that the local foxes had them. Sadly none left now.

Cheers

Maurice

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