The gloom continues but it's sure better than wet n windy

The Safari was taken up to Leighton Moss by CR where we met IH joined by young LH who hopefully will become a more regular safari member although she currently lives in a different  part  of the country.

First stop was a look from Lillian's Hide where there was a good selection of waterfowl and a few well secreted Snipe. However we didn't stop too long as we wanted to show LH one of the reserve's specialities, the Bearded Tits, so we walked down to the grit trays along the path to the Grisedale Hide withall our fingers crossed. The woody walk was quite, almost devoid of life and the reedbed section not much better and we weren't hearing the tell-tale 'pings' of any Bearded Tits as we neared the grit trays. The grit trays are important as Bearded Tits change their diet in the autumn from summer invertebrates to winter seeds. They dine almost exclusively on the seeds of the Phragmites reeds in the winter and to help dogest these swallow grit to help grind the seeds up. Early in the season their crops hold no grit so they visit the trays regularly but as the season progresses some but not all gets passed out the other end so the don't need to top up so often and we're now at the start of that not so often time of year. Today we were unlucky as it seemed to be a no grit required type of day. After waiting around a fair while with no joy we moved on to the hide where we hoped a Red Deer or two might be on show for LH but again they too must have heard a newby was with us and not wanting to get her over-excited decided not to put in an appearance as well. 

On the pool was the usual waterfowl fare, a few Coots swam around in the gloom, like our last safari photos today had to be taken at ISO Ludicrous.

Ducks included snoozing Shovelers

and more active Gadwalls

High up on the Great Black Backed Gull nesting platform (aka Osprey platform) a Cormorant kept an eye on proceedings from its lofy perch.

Meanwhile back on the water a nice drake Teal swam past not too far away

Before drifting off to drift off with a pair of sleepy Shovelers

All of a sudden there was a commotion and a burst of activity off to our right, a Sparrowhawk had launched an attack on some Snipe hiding unseen by us at the water's edge over that way. All the Snipe escaped and were up up and away off to the safety of another pool while the Sparrowhawk flew into a nearby bush and waited in the hope they wouldn't notice her and return.

After casting her beady eyes this way and that it must have become obvious there were no other potential  lunches close by as she soon left the bush and swooped low over the water right in front of us giving superb views but too quick for our cameras, sometimes though the image is etched into your memory far better than binary code onto an SD card and this was one of those occasions. There were no Snipe flushed as she shot low across the length of the pool - time to try her luck at another one. The scattered ducks soon settled down and among them a drake Pintail

came out from its hiding place and started to do a bit of head-bobbing displaying.

A distant female Marsh Harrier simply rerfused to come any closer and soon disappeared into one of the unviewable pools at the back of the reedbed.

It was now time for another wander so back we went past the still quiet grit trays, listening for the tell-tale 'pings' we only heard squaling Water Rails and chuntering Cetti's Warblers calling unseen from the dense reedbed. There was little to get excited about from the Tim Jackson Hide and a good wait in there gave us no real photo opportunities and sadly no Red Deer either. 

Moving on we retraced our steps back to Lillian's Hide where a female Teal was dabbling among the reed bases right in front of us.

She looked up every time she heard the camera shutters clicking

A female Shoveler dabbled, or should that be sieved, past too.

She was approached by a male

who's scratching looked like he was waving at either the female or us.

Food was now on everyones' minds but to get to the butties in the cars we had to pass the Feeding Station which was lively with a good selection of birds. And if they perched in the right place offered some nice autumn colour pics.

Star of the show might have been this friendly Robin singing for his supper (lunch) at the passers-by who might have a mealworm or two in their pockets

He was certainly giving it some welly!

However he was usurped by a tiny Goldcrest that was spotted flitting around a small tree to his right and all attention turned away from the him; we're saying he's a he but at this time of year he could easily be a she as both sexes sing to defend a winter territory for themselves and although they might be able to tell the difference at a glance or by ear us Humans can't.

There was a second one further back flitting around an Ivy covered Hawthorn bush but we didn't manage to connect with that one. Nor did we manage to connect with the Marsh Tit that was repeatedly visiting the feeders. Just as we were about to leave a Treecreeper was pointed out working its way up the large Oak nearby.

It even did some arboreal gymanastics for us.

Pies and butties were taken to the Causeway Hide where a few Black Headed Gulls jockied for position on the post in front of the window. One of which was ringed by good friend KB down at Martin Mere as a youngster in 2022 then made it's way to here by the autumn and has only been recorded in the autumn and winter up here at Leighton Moss since. In fact our record is the first for, give or take a couple of days, exactly a year begging the question where does it go in the spring and summer.

If you see a bird with a coloured ring like this one or even without letters you can report them very easily here.
The posts seemed to be a good place to have a bit of a preen and feather ruffle...good to see some sunshine at last too.

As usual there were large flocks of Gadwall and Coot.

Just look at those vermiculations on the drake Gadwall - taking understated to a higher level!

Coots too are understated with lovely shades of dark grey and almost black when the light catches them right, and then there's that somewhat menacing red eye.

One of the Coots played at being a Black Headed Gull and found a (much shorter) post on which to have a preen and a stretch - enjoy those weird feet!

The Gadwall and Coot had another function apart from their aesthetic beauty, Otter spotters! On a couple of occasions we saw commotion in the flocks and birds fleeing en masse but didn't see what had caused the panic. Then a Buzzard flew across the water and strangely came straight back but had somehow morphed into a male Marsh Harrier andd while watching that a dark shape appeared low in the water right in front of us not too far out, an Otter's head. How had that snuck past all the Coots and Gadwall, was all their attention taken by the raptors overhead? All to soon it was lost behind the reeds closer to the hide but at last LH had got her first view of an Otter even if it was only brief. Now we'd seen it all we had to do was wait for it to reappear which eventually it did but much more distant along the reed edge to the far right and then again again even more distantly but gave much more prolonged views...a scope would have been useful. Somewhat surprisingly that was our first sighting of an Otter this year. We watched it slink into the reedbed and then decided to spend the rest of the afternoon down  on the saltmarshes. Down at the Allen Hide the low November sun (yes that strange glowing thing in the sky) made viewing difficult and uncomfortable, we think everyone still has their retinas! but it did make for nice arty silhouette shots.

Looking southwards from the Eric Morecambe Hide was more or less the same although we did pick out a distant Dunlin among the silhouettes of Redshanks and Lapwings. One such group of Redshanks held a Spotted Redshank which was incredibly difficult to pick out until we were offered a look down the finder's scope. With viewing conditions awkward to say the least we swapped over to the other side of the hide to view the Allen Pool in much better light. We spent the time waiting for a Kingfisher not to show counting the Little and Great White Egrets to make sure IH's Herons were well beaten and following this Redshank around as it waded, paddled and swam across the nearest bit of the pool looking for Brown Shrimps n stuff.

Eventually we did get to see the colour of a Redshank's shanks

and then ended the safari with a cracking male Mallard. We don't care if they are common they're still a fabulous looking bird.

 

All the time we were out LH was borrowing her dad's camera and once home put together this little snippet of video to give you a flavour of the day.

We look forward to her coming along in the future and can't wait to watch her next videos of our safaris

Where to next? Not sure yet but we'll be out on safari somewhere in the north west before too long.

In the meantime let us know who's got the reddest legs in your outback.

In for a Penny; but did we find the pound?

The Safari picked up CR and headed south east to join almost all the old Southside Gang at a grey, dull, dreary but mild(ish) Pennington Flash just over the border into Greater Manchester, our first safari here since mid-April. 

Perhaps the most interesting thing to be seen from a quick peak from the first hide was a Red Dogwood bush in striking plumage, normally we would expect to see the stems this bright, especially as there was no sunshine - chance would have been a fine thing - today, as the sap was rising in the early spring. Maybe it was just the contrast with the, mostly, still green leaves around it but it did seem unseasonally vivid. Anyway with little else to keep us entertained we moved on to the Feeding Station at the Bunting Hide, which should perhaps be renamed the Squirrel Hide due to the plague of Grey Squirrels to be seen there. Not as many as on our previous visit, 'only' eight of them today and big fat ones at that. We don't know what time the feeders get filled up but by the time we got there those pesky Grey Squirrels had eaten almost every single morsel leaving slim picking for the birds. There's definitley a case for more Goshawks and Pine Martens here! We imagine they'd be easy to catch as many of them were pretty rotund for squirrels, and a couple of them were positively barreloid. Any spillage from on high knocked off the feeders was eagerly hoovered up by a herd of Mallards leaving even less for the smaller birds. 

So what small birds did we see? The usual feeders fare was there, like this Great Tit, along with Blue Tits and a couple of, far too fast for our camera, Coal Tits.

With the dearth of food remaining by mid morning the Robins were getting fiesty with each other and a few Moorhens dodged the Mallards on the hunt for missed spillage. After a while one of the 'main event' birds showed itself.

Fortunately it came down to search the table for any left-overseeds.

The Grey Squirrels must miss or ignore the small seeds like Millet that must be in the mix provided. The Coal Tits continued to be too fast for us, the Blue Tits wouldn't sit in a photogenic place but at least the Great Tits provided something to  point the lens at and in the right place with a bit of autumn colour too.

The pics aren't the best as we were up around ISO Beyond Ridiculous due to the gloomy weather and the overhanging trees, double and even triple lashings of noise reduction have been added where necessary too. Almost as we got up to  move on a Nuthatch came in for a look-about, nice.

Once it had departed we continued on our walk to the next hide, where IH, who unfortunately wasn't able to join us to complete the 'set' of the Southside Gang, would have enjoyed the sight of a Heron and total lack of any egrets here for a change.

A small number of ducks, Teal and Gadwall mainly, were mostly a the far side of the pool until  a drake Teal came a little closer.

There weren't many small birds to be seen or heard in the trees along the path to the next hide where we expected to find some Goosanders but there weren't any. There wasn't much of anything and the only 'near' bird was a Moorhen poking around in the overly bright green nightmare that is the extensive bank of invasive New Zealand Pygmyweed. A few Coots mooched around the far bank and a Little Grebe was heard but other than that it was quiet until a dazzling blue dart shot across the back of the pool, always good to see a Kingfisher even if it is only a brief view. A look over the lake from the Horrocks Hide gave us a our first Goldeneyes of the season. A few Snipe were flushed by a Sparrowhawk darting out of the trees on the right hand side but the gulls, Coots, single Oystercatcher and Mallards on the end of the spit took no notice. Scanning around the lake we found several Tufted Ducks and a couple of Great Crested Grebes but we couldn't find anything unusual among the gulls, we were particularly interested in finding a Yellow Legged Gull for our Challenge, we were probably too early in the day with large numbers of gulls coming in to roost on the water in the evening. 

By now it was lunchtime and while the Southsiders took advantage of warming brews and bacon barms in the new cafe we went back to the feeders along with CR to munch our pies and butties. That turned out to be a good move as we soon had a female Bullfinch come down to say hello.

And not long after us saying with all the Grey Squirrels having eaten all the food there was little chance of seeing a Willow Tit, especially as the nearby tables along the very muddy track had been taken away, didn't one go and appear...How often does that happen?

Each time it found a seed it disappeared into the undergrowth to eat it but unlike the Coal Tits spent sometime chosing the next one when it reappeared which it did several times.

We rejoined the some of rest of the gang after lunch and decided to do the circuit the 'wrong way round' - for some inexplicable reason we've only ever walked round the reserve anti-clockwise. So our first stop was at the Horrocks Hide. This caused a bit of chaos with AB and AK who'd stayed in the cafe chatting...where were we??? We went for a quick look to see if we could see them and deliver some lunch rubbish to the nearest bin which was by the water's edge where we sawe this huge fish struggling in the shallows. Not sure what it is, answers on a postcard please. It appeared to have a rounded tail like a Tench rather than a more traditional forked tail which although we took several photos was always under the water when the shutter opened.

It was a big fish, well over 2 feet (60cm) long including the tail. We didn't get back that way so don't know how it got on but it didn't look too good wallowing around so close to the bank. A phone rang "where are you? We're lost" The other two hadn't heard us say we were going to go the wrong way round. Some interesting interpretations of directions later two smiling faces poked through the door, everyone was back together again - phew.
From the hide there was little change from earlier although we were joined by a Little Egret that began to fish in the shallow pool in front of us.

After a few minutes having had no success it had a scratch

and then headed off for, hopefully, more productive fishing grounds.

Withthe gang all present and correct we set off to continue the wrong way round seeing very little new for the day. We had been hoping for some Redwings and Fieldfares but struggled to even see many Blackbirds. Snatches of Cetti's Warbler song was heard coming from thick vegetation several times but we couldn't see any of them. On a day when herons almost beat egrets in our safari tally-up one of the day's best sightings was this afternoon Heron, the same individual as seen in the morning, stood reflecting in front of the atumnal coloured reeds.

It was well into mid-afternoon and getting very gloomy now so we said our goodbyes to the Southsiders, really great to see them all again, and head off headlong into a massive tailback on the motorway...marvelous...NOT!

Not one of our most exciting safaris but we did see just about everything that was on offer and of course had a great catch up and lots of banter with the Southsiders so it was a grand day out.

Where to next? Not sure yet but we'll be out on safari somewhere soon.

In the meantime let us know who the greedy bloaters are in your outback