The Safari was kindly driven up to Leighton Moss by Cr last friday where we met up with good friend IH from the Southside. We met in Lillians Hide and spent several minutes looking for the female Ring Necked Duck we'd seen on our last visit (see previous blog post). There was much more water in the pool that last time and the numbers of both dabbling and diving ducks was much reduced. There were still a fair few Tufted Ducks around but no sign of our target bird. We found a couple of Snipe well hidden among the piles of cut reed and then found a third extremely well hidden. No sign of any Jack Snipe though - we should have been here last week when friend KL videod one doing its bobbing sewing machine thing.
Trouble is he went and sat with a female Shoveler right against the light, if only he'd have swum left instead of right, no amount of willing it made hime change course...the rotter!
There was precious little else on the pool here, again the high water levels had driven most of the ducks elsewhere. CR spotted a butterfly which shot past and remained unidentified. We didn't stay too long and retraced our steps past the grit trays where a female Reed Bunting was the only attraction. - there was only one other birdeer there and he didn't stop long; that doesn't happen often and suggested that our little moustacheod friends weren't playing out today. The decision was made to head to the Causeway Hide passing the grit trays there on the way. A Robin posed in the sunshine for us, probably hoping for an illicit hand out but being the goody-two hoes that we are we had nothing for it.
Along the boardwalk Cetti's Warblers sang invisibly and above our heads a small flock of Long Tailed Tits with a couple of Blue Tits flitted about the shrubby Willows lining the path. They were very active and a soon as the camera locked onto them they were gone so we got a lot of fuzzy shots, shots of a tail in the corner orf the frame and lots of twiggy shots and just this one poor nearly OK shot.
Always a joy to see and now seem to be much more widespread than in the dim and distant past, indeed these were only a few hundred yards from where we saw our very first ones back in the early 1970s on a YOC visit. Does the YOC still exist? A quick Google suggests its morphed into something else youthy now.
A little further down the path a Great White Egret flew across in the middle distance. Our hastily take nsnaps weren't brilliant in the harsh sunlight even though it was behind us.
As soon as we joined the Causeway we could see a crowd at the grit trays and as we approached there were folk beckoning to us to hurry up. Thank you guys. There were more people there than we could see at first and getting a good view of the action through the throng was tricky but still most enjoyable as at least half a dozen Bearded Tits flitted through over the next ten minutes or so taking turns on the grit tray this time rather than all piling on at once. Despite shooting over peoples' shoulders and thought their ears we filled out boots as the little beauties flitted in and out of the reedbed.
Getting a clear shot proved tricky as they were invariably obscured to some extent by some bit of vegetation or other.
A couple of birds spent some time doing what they are supposed to do at this time of year, namely take seeds from the seedheads of the Reeds but from our position in the huddle we couldn't get a clear shot of them. After a while they all made their way across the trand in to the reeds on the other side where thir pinging calls grew fainter and fainter as moved further and further away. Not so faint were the calling Water Rails, their squealing calls being heard from all over the place today unlike our last visit. None of them ventured out into the open though, we'll probably have to wait until there's some ice about for that.
From the hide our attention was immediately drawn to the wonderful iridescence of the two Cormorants sat on the posts in front of us.
This one even did the whole Liver Birds thing.
There were a lot of Coots on the water and something unseen upset all those to our left which scurried and fluttered out into the middle of the lake, all apart from these 21 that decided terra firma might be a better bet. They couldn't have been too bothered by whatever it was cos their vigilance soon subsided into a mass preen-off.
As well as a lot of Coots there was also a lot of Mute Swans but the Whooper Swans from last time out were now long gone. With not an Otter to be seen it was time for us to be long gone too...off to Lower Hide.
The walk through the woods was a quiet as it invariably is these days and the view from the hide window wasn't that inspiring either. News from the birders already there was more or less that there was no news! The pool was empty and had been for some time. Still we sat it out for a good while until a Marsh Harrier started to patrol the reedbeds on the far side. It put up several small gruops of Snipe which coalesced into a larger 'whisp'. Our maximum count was about three dozen but by the time they'd come within range of our lens some had peeled away leaving these 26 to do a couple of laps of the pool before settling out of sight on the far bank.
We pushed on and it was past Lillians Hide where we had the best sighting of the day, at least we should say that CR and IH had the best sighting of the day as we totally missed it - a Water Shrew ran across the path a few yards in front of us. Not a species you get to see very often so we were a bit gutted to have been looking the wrong way at that precise moment.
There was yet more inactivity at the grit trays, not overly surprising at it was now getting late in the afternoon and we're well past 'peak grit tray season'.
At the hide it was still quiet, no-one had seen hide nor hair of any Red Deer all day, again it's that time of year after the 'rut' when they just melt away into the reedbeds and nearby woods and become much more secretive. However our hybrid friend hadn't moved far from this morning's visit and was now in much better light even though it was much darker now.
For a few short minutes it looked like he might have a little paddle about but no - he went back to sleep again.
With time pressing on and the light fading fast, not to mention the chance of horrendous traffic on the way back to Base Camp it was time to leave. Another grand day out on safari at leighton Moss came to an end. Did we hit the horrendous traffic? Unfortuantely yes.
Where to next? Family stuff might have to take precident for a few days but you can rest assured we'll be out in our outback looking at the wonderful wildlife as often as we can, with camera in hand on occasion too.
In the meantime let us know who's sporting the best beards in your outback.
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