Recent photos

Here are a few photos taken locally over the last few days. Can you identify each one?

From the top they are Oystercatcher, Greylag Goose, Kestrel, Lapwing and Curlew, and Meadow Pipit.

The Moon at closest to Earth for 18 years

Took a few photos of the Moon last night as it was the nearest it has been for 18 years. Didn't look any bigger though...

As I was looking though the photos this morning I noticed that a few of them have dark marks on them that move across the surface of the Moon - then I remembered hearing Canada Geese flying over while I was out photographing so these are geese, not UFO's! One is just below the centre of the Moon, the other is just off the edge of the Moon at about 25 minutes past on a clock face.

Strait Hey

Strait Hey this afternoon about 4 o'clock after I got out of the house, leaving the decorating behind for a while. A nice sunny day but cold.

72 Fieldfare and a Redwing in the 3 hawthorns:

The Fieldfare flew off as I approached and left the Redwing behind

It also flew off when I got too close

Yellowhammers

A walk over at Bradley this morning before going to collect some plants from Allan turned out to be very productive. A pair of Yammers were there and the male flew off with the female but he returned and landed in a tree just above me and sang for half a minute before flying off again -

Auto-focus is great most of the time but when you have branches in the way as I did this morning, you have to go to manual focus and take your chances. I was worried that the bird would take off before I'd changed the camera setting but luckily it stayed long enough to get a few shots.

A pair of Bullfinch were also near-by as were a small flock of Chaffinch, Goldfinch and Lesser Redpoll. A Sparrowhawk overhead was a great sight until the local crows took exception to it and sent it packing.

Gaddings Dam and Lee Dam

A sunny, clear afternoon so I went up to Gaddings. A pair of Goldeneye and the first Skylark of the year were up there. The water was calm with hardly a breath of wind so Tod beach looked almost inviting - apart from the 4 degree temperature.

The view from Gaddings towards Stoodley Pike:

A mass of frogs were croaking away and laying frog spawn:

At Lee Dam on the way home there were 4 Teal and 5 Goosander - here's a female Goosander: