Saturday - and sun!

Well - it's the weekend again and this weekend is special - I have a very important visitor.

I picked up my visitor at lunchtime on Friday and we had a lazy afternoon.

Saturday morning and the usual birds were about in the garden. It was actually sunny and four of the ten Ring-necked Parakeets gathered in the usual meeting place - high up in the Eucalyptus tree where some sort of discussion seems to be taking place:

Whilst some preferred to be on their own,

...this group in the apple tree studiously ignored each other


Whilst they were chatting or ignoring, 18 Goldfinches were tucking into breakfast accompanied by, amongst others, Greenfinches, Great Tits, Chaffinches, Starlings, "my" robin, a magpie and, missing for a while, a Dunnock joined the party.

After my visitor had had lie-in on Saturday morning, we had various things to do - some bits of food shopping for me and he had some work to do at home. Having got that out of the way, we decided to enjoy the sun and go for a brisk walk around Bushey Park - it was cold! Probably one of the first really cold winter days we've had.

The usual birdie culprits were about. Loads of Black-headed gulls out on the Boating Lake, together with large numbers of Canada Geese, Mallards, Coots etc.

Further along, a Grey Heron landed and started looking for a snack.

I believe "Dennis Healy" is the name of the bird...

We passed a small herd of Fallow Deer - looking very pretty as usual - even the males!



A shortish walk but enough to blow the cobwebs away and to enjoy some wildlife before returning home.

Sea Sky

For Skywatch.
A visit to the beach at Ferring, West Sussex, England - one of my favourite places.

Camera shy

Not a lot happening on the birding front in the last couple of days. Pleased to say though, that the female Great Spotted Woodpecker is still visiting the garden; the Nuthatch paid a visit this morning and yesterday, the Goldfinch numbers were in excess of 22!!

She's a bit shy......

*note to self: must clean the windows!*

A Grey Phalarope Day

A brilliantly grey day when my first garden visitors were (amongst others) 6 Long-tailed Tits, 8 Goldfinches, 6 Greenfinches, 10 Ring-necked Parakeets (in my garden) and 13 more in the nearby Oak Tree (not sure that's something to be celebrated or not though). Not a bad for a day like today thought I!

Having received another message (from my personal bird-alert service :D) that the Grey Phalarope was still in the same place as yesterday (Rick Pond in Home Park, Hampton Court), I headed off this morning. It was grey and drizzly and parking the car wasn't straight forward but never mind.

I found the Phalarope on Rick Pond - and whey hey it was only about 3 metres from the edge. Most of the time it was faced away into the prevailing wind (and rain!) and not much opportunity to get a head-on shot. So I wacked up the ISO to 1600/3200, opened the shutter as much as I dared (wanted depth of field), set shots to continuous shooting and A1 Servo.

What an obliging and beautiful little bird it was too. It was constantly on the move and obviously feeding. Luckily for me, it then decided to have a quick preen. I stayed there for some time (despite the now annoying rain) and hoped for a break in the weather. Patience paid off and for about 3 minutes I had some very weak sunshine.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest. I make no apology for posting so many......

While pausing for some better light, I took the opportunity to catch these.
Canada Geese in flight



Mute swans

- this one (at the rear) was being extremely aggressive to the other and at one time had its beak round the back of the other one's neck chasing it down the pond!



And the Star of today's show...

There's this bird...

It started with a ..... text yesterday. Grey Phalarope, Rick Pond, Hampton Court Park. OK - that's on my doorstep, but the pond - where in the park is it?

Hampton Court Park is also known (and probably more correctly) as Home Park . This park is mostly open ground with many oak trees. It has entrances off the River Thames Towpath and further away in Kingston upon Thames; from here you can drive up to the Golf Club - the golf course occupying quite a large part of the park. Apart from this, it is open park land without any facilities - which is good!

So on Friday, with not that much time to spare, I trotted off to find Rick Pond. I started from Hampton Court and walked about 1.5 miles. There was only one pond I could think of but that didn't marry up with where I was expecting to find the pond. I asked one of the groundsmen and he suggested that it must be that one - he didn't know of another. Well, it wasn't - I was sure - and by then I was out of time. I met said groundsman on my return. He then remembered where the other pond was - hey ho. So off home I went for other commitments.

I may have dipped on the bird, but I did see a small group of Fallow Deer blending in with the background.



TODAY - SATURDAY
My daughter was going into Kingston-upon-Thames and suggested I joined her and my grandson for a walk along the towpath. This we did but went through Home Park which is bordered by the towpath.

Hampton Court Palace from the road bridge. The river is very high at present, from all the rain we've been having.

Huge bunches of mistletoe adorn this tree in the palace grounds

Rick Pond
I found Rick pond - was impressed with the size of it - it's very open - one birder looking around - plus me - BUT no Grey Phalarope. Not really surprised it had probably long gone since yesterday.


So we continued our very enjoyable walk into Kingston, having rejoined the towpath from the park. Our journey (from my daughter's home) was probably about 4 miles.



Kingston Bridge appears in the next two pictures
(if you look very closely that is.....)



View from Kingston bridge looking upstream

Having reached town, it really reinforced in my mind when I never go in at a weekend - particularly with the run up to Christmas - it was packed. We did our minimal shopping and fled for home; we cheated and caught the bus most of the way back.

I think I shall sleep tonight.

A different nesting species?

I'm rather glad I haven't got these nesting in my garden!

A sprint around my local patch

I had a quick walk about Bushey Park today. No Deer movement; saW three fallow deer and that was about it for four legged friends.

The usual suspects of the birding world were about and these provided goodly subjects for trying out my new ErgoRest. I believe that I'm now able to hold the camera (and it's weighty lens) more steadily. The pictures that follow have not been edited at all with the exception of a bit of cropping as relevant. I'm reasonably pleased with the results.