Category Archives: water birds

Geese and other birds at Falmer Pond

March 17, 2014 by Words | 2 Comments

After the brief hiatus of the weekend, it’s a new week and new photos from Falmer Pond. No rats today (I promise), but the greylags did themselves proud so get featured a fair bit. The scene first thing this morning was perfect. Sunny, but not too bright, and calm. No sign of the recent fog, thankfully.

Falmer Pond in early morning sunshine

The No Fishing sign was deserted. Not even a gull to disturb the peace.

No Fishing sign

The greylags were gathered around the edge of the pond. I suspect they were waiting to be fed, but they are out of luck with me.

Greylag geese at the edge of Falmer Pond

Greylag geese at the edge of Falmer Pond

Thing s became a little more active later in the day.

greylag geese chasing

greylag goose

But mainly it was quiet. This duck is a relative newcomer to the pond. It was sheltering under some trees close to the water’s edge.

Hybrid duck at Falmer

To close, another peaceful photo: a moorhen sitting on her nest.

moorhen on nest

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

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Fog, Tree Slime and some other photos

March 14, 2014 by Words | 4 Comments

The clear skies were well and truly absent when I set off to work this morning. It was a slow and careful drive through thick fog. Consequently there was little to see at the pond… or to be precise there was little that I could see at the pond.

Falmer Pond in thick fog

There was a temporary respite in the middle of the day (my drive home in the evening was once again through fog), and some cool sunshine. So for some welcome variety here’s a greylag goose with a nice reflection in the calm of the water.

Greylag goose and reflection

There were plenty of gulls (herring and black-headed varieties). This black-headed was one of the few already displaying its breeding plumage from which their name derives.

Black-headed gull

As for the ‘tree slime’ in the title, it was bright orange and oozing from a recently cut tree stump.

tree slime

From what I’ve found about this, it’s a yeast that feeds on the rising sap of untreated stumps, and is more prevalent after extended periods of wet weather. Well the trees around the pond have been cut back in the past few weeks, and we’ve certainly had an extended wet period. The slime is harmless. There’s some straightforward information about this stuff on the Cornell Mushroom Blog.

And yes, in case you are wondering I did spy the occasional small furry rodent. To be fair they were mainly keeping out of sight (the lunchtime sun brought quite a number of people out, and the rats prefer to keep out of view when it’s busy). This is a silhouette of a rat running down a tree.

Silhouette of rat running down a tree

It then made a dash across the water to the security of a bankside rat run.

Rat swimming

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

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Rural Landscapes

March 10, 2014 by Words | 6 Comments

For a change I’m going to focus on a few rural landscape shots today. The weekend had left Falmer Pond in less than pristine condition. There was a fair amount of rubbish around, and this:

Rubbish bin discarded in Falmer Pond.

I’ve no idea why anyone would throw a rubbish bin in a pond, but then there’s no accounting for some folk. I was pleased to see it had been retrieved during the morning and was back on its plinth by the side of the road.

Later in the day I headed out to Ridge Road. There are some stunning views of the Downs from there but I ended up walking through a small wooded area. This wasn’t intentional. I’d gone along the path by the fields and found my route back to the road cut off by some new fencing. It was either go back the way I’d come or cut through the wood to get beyond the fencing. I’m glad I did.

Woodland path

Woodland path

Woodland path

I can’t quite bring myself to include no wildlife, so here’s a greylag coming in to land on the pond this morning. It’s almost a companion shot to the duck from last week.

Greylag goose landing in Falmer Pond,

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

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