WWT London - Day Trip Final Part

Well I have probably dragged this report out long enough, so here is my final part with a few images taken from the last hide of the day.  Earlier parts can be read here, here and here if you haven't seen any of them yet.

Tufted Duck

The light was patchy while a Little Grebe was displaying, and these next few images show the difference a little bit of sunshine makes, and why sometimes it really isn't worth photographing, but spend the time watching.

Sometimes it is quite nice to watch common birds in unusual circumstances.  While I have watched crows bathing in my pond many times, I can't remember seeing them quite a long way out on a lake bathing.

So that's it for my WWT London trip.  On a day when the weather forecast promised so much in terms of light, but delivered so little, it was a case of making the best of what was available.

It was my first time to this site, and it is set out quite well for birders, less well for photographers, but that is a problem at many reserves and will be the subject for a future blog.

Nonetheless, it is worth a visit, and is a real gem located so close to the centre of London, yet easily accessed from the west side of the M25

Martin

WWT London - Day Trip Part 3 - Sparrowhawk

A couple of not particularly brilliant pictures of a juvenile Sparrowhawk. from my recent visit to WWt London

Subject too far away, so a big crop, crappy light, specular highlights in the background, horrible mesh fence - blah blah.

But I am always a bit of a sucker for Sparrowhawks, so the first one shows the juvenile sat on the vermin fencing that has been placed around this particular area. I guess this is there to prevent fox and other vermin taking chicks, eggs etc

The second image shows it 'lightening the load' shortly before it departed.

One more episode with some delightful Little Grebe images to come

Martin

WWTLondon - Day Trip Report Part 2 - Grey Heron

Following on from the first part of the trip report here, in this second part there are few words and some images of a very common and very easy to photograph large bird.

What I liked about these and feel that they are little different from the norm is centred on the bird behaviour.

I can't say that I have seen a Heron in some of the poses here such as squatting down or appear to swim like a Pelican.

Anyway, a few from the earlier part of my visit, when the light was still horribly flat and grey.




Had a play with the blog format and think I have got it back straight again. Fingers crossed this time. Hope you like the slightly new format. Seems a little slicker

Martin

WWT London Day Trip Report - Part 1

As promised, a week after I went to WWT London, here are a couple of images tat were taken about midday, in horrible flat grey light.

I arrived at the centre at about 11 am, having dropped Jac off en route for her visit to London.  As I walked in from the car park, I heard an unusual call which made me immediately think 'Parrot'., but I didn't see anything at this stage.

As I walked down the first part of the reserve, I heard the sound again and looked up to see the distinctive shape of a couple of Ring Necked Parakeets.  Now these birds are quite abundant in this part of London, with many thousands that have now taken hold.  I did see some back in about 1997 when I worked in south west London, but have not seen any since that time, and certainly not while I have been taken photos of birds.

As I walked down to the bottom of the reserve towards the observation tower, I could see a number of them on the roof or just under the eaves.

Somebody in the tower told me that they were stripping out the house martin nesting material, which it certainly looked like.

These two images were taken with the 7D, 500f4 and the 1.4 EFTC for maximum reach, and even then are quite heavily cropped.

Pretty birds and noisy birds they certainly are, but quite a lot of character when watching the behaviours.

While up in the tower, I could have down with much shorter reach of lens as they flew by very close to as they came in to land.

I will be back with some other birds, and a bit more of a review of the centre in subsequent blogs

Martin