Burton Mere Wetlands

My local RSPB reserve is Burton Mere Wetlands, formerly known to long-time visitors as Inner Marsh Farm. It is a great place for wildlife (especially wetland birds) at any time of the year. But my recent visit was for a woodland bird, namely a Long-eared Owl that has taken to roosting in trees near the old Inner Marsh Farm Hide.
As usual with these birds, it was secreted deep in a dense tangle of trees and bushes and was therefore not easy to locate. It was a bit like viewing one of those 3-D images that were popular a while ago; it was necessary to stare into the centre of the maze of twigs and branches and suddenly the image of the owl would come into focus, motionless and superbly camouflaged. Naturally photography was a challenge in these conditions, but I managed a "record" shot.
I left this popular bird to the small crowd of admirers and returned to the visitor centre via the old fishing pools that occasionally hold Kingfisher, but my luck wasn't holding. Although I did see what I thought was an early sign of Spring as a Coot dragged a long piece of vegetation across one of the pools. Ah, I thought, it was starting to nest-build; but I was wrong, the bird stopped in the middle of the lake and proceeded to shake and cut the greenery into small easily-swallowed pieces. It was having an afternoon snack!
I stopped by the bird feeders to photograph a female Great Spotted Woodpecker. It was here that I saw a cheeky Brown Rat making the most of some spilt seed. A surprising end to a short sojourn to my local reserve.

 

Marsh Tits at Leighton Moss

Last week my friend Jane and I visited Sizergh Castle in Cumbria in the hope of seeing Hawfinches. We pulled into the car park in bright sunshine but it soon started to snow. A thorough search of the area failed to produce our quarry so we went for a short walk in the surrounding countryside; the coldness of the weather did not diminish our appreciation of this beautiful part of the country. After photographing common birds such as Robin, Wren and Blackbird, we returned to the car park but there was still no sign of the target birds. We decided to head south so we could lunch a Leighton Moss RSPB.
Passing through Milnthorpe the clouds unleashed a veritable snow blizzard of Dickensian proportions. It was almost a total whiteout! We drove on to Leighton Moss where we enjoyed a picnic in Lilian's Hide. I prefer to eat outside to maximise the wildlife viewing opportunities.
But to say the weather was changeable was grossly understating the situation. In the film version of H.G. Wells' classic novel The Time Machine, the time traveller views the passing days as a strobe of night and day; similarly the weather that day fluctuated rapidly between bouts of sunshine and mini snowstorms driven in by a bitter Easterly wind.
Undeterred by the elements we enjoyed a great day's birdwatching. One of the highlights for me was the newly built shelter by the bird feeders where we enjoyed great views of common woodland birds and scarcer birds including one of my favourites the subtly beautiful Marsh Tit. We rounded the day off with a very welcome curry in nearby Carnforth.

 

Robins and Wren photographed at Sizergh Castle.

Marsh Tits.

Common Snipe.

Immature Mute Swan in snowstorm.

Male Wigeon.

Female Great Spotted Woodpecker.

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Leighton Moss