Warblers

Sedge warbler

We often hear the warblers but don't often see them - but yesterday we saw both the reed and sedge warblers. There were a couple of pairs of the reed warblers, all very busy, darting around a patch of reeds and into the trees and back. Very fast moving and hard to get a proper lock on with the camera!

Reed warbler

Tern feeding

Target spotted

Stockers Lake is very well supplied with bugs at the moment. Mayflies, dragonflies, who knows what else. It's making the bug eating birds very happy. The terns were being particularly acrobatic in pursuit of them today.

Grebe v Crayfish

This one is from last weekend. It took a while, but the great crested grebe won. The other grebe tried to help but this one was not interested in sharing.

Hybrid mallard

Now this is really interesting to me - I saw this fella today while walking around Stockers Lake and was totally confused. Mallard drake head and tail, and chestnut feathers in between? Not at all familiar. So when I got home I did some reading and discovered that mallards hybridise quite freely. So I am assuming that one of his parents was a mallard and one was something else. Or he's from an escaped domesticated strain, bred to have different plumage. Either way, he's very striking looking.

Red Kite

I'd been watching this kite circling around the garden, at high altitude, for a couple of minutes, then suddenly plummet down a couple of streets away. It took me by surprise when it came over from behind me, really low and with something clutched in its talons. The lowest, closest pictures didn't come out but it got into some good light and I got focus for a couple.

Buzzard and crow

They were too far away for good pictures, but this was a pretty epic aerial battle in the sky to the west of Stocker's Lake today. As well as the two main antagonists, there were a couple of kites buzzing around. It was hard to tell if they were involved or just opportunistically having a look to see what they were fighting over.