Category Archives: water birds

Runner Ducks

October 12, 2013 by Words | 2 Comments

Apologies to anyone who came by yesterday and saw a DNS failure notice. I’d been tweaking some settings on my host and then changed my mind and then the site went down. Good support, and all was back up by morning. Anyway, the weather has been conspiring against me today although there was a brief period early this morning when the clouds cleared and the sun shone down. About that time the local Indian runner ducks spotted one of the locals arriving with the daily food parcel 😉

Here are the ducks. They are such odd looking creatures, domesticated from wild ducks and originally bred for their egg-laying and the fact that you could walk them to market. This group has taken up residence at the local pond. I suspect they originally arrived by car.

Indian runner duck

Indian runner duck

Indian runner duck

Indian runner duck

And to tidy things up a sample that should have appeared last night.

Brown rat

Rat 😉

Pied Wagtail

Pied Wagtail

Muscovy Ducks

Muscovy Ducks

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

Also posted in Birds, rats, Wildlife Tagged , , , |

Morning Light and a stoat-ally special surprise

October 7, 2013 by Words | Comments Off

The weather is holding good. It’s mild, and today the early mists were being beaten back by some beautiful sunshine. Good light makes all the difference to taking photos, especially of common subjects such as these ducks. Each makes a slightly different use of the light, though my favourite is the silhouette.

Duck on rock

white duck landing

duck silhouette

As the sun rises the light loses its quality, but it was still provided some nice illumination of a young rat scrabbling over the rocks.

rat

rat

The really special moment came later in the day, with the sun high. I was back at the pond, but for a change looked out into the surrounding fields. At the edge of the woodland fringe a sharp movement caught my eye. As a startled rabbit ran out to safety in the field I spotted a stoat darting through the thick brush. These aren’t the best shots of a stoat, but I see stoats so rarely that I’m not going to leave them out.

Stoat

Stoat

Stoat

Stoat

Stoat

The entire sighting was over in about 8 seconds. Naturally I stayed glued to the spot in case it reappeared, but it wasn’t to be. Wonderful to see though.

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

Also posted in Birds, rats, Stoat, Wildlife Tagged , , , , |

Greylags Take Flight

October 3, 2013 by Words | Comments Off

I can almost here the sigh of relief that I’ve finally found something other than rats to photograph. They were around, but so were the local greylags. Unlike many of the pond birds, the majority of the greylags aren’t permanent residents. We have a few who never seem to go anywhere, but the rest have a wider territory. There was a small flock resting on the water when I arrived this morning.

Greylag geese

Mostly they just swim around or graze on the grassy banks, but this morning a group of them decided to venture further afield which provided a couple of nice sequences of them taking to the wing.

Greylag geese

Greylag geese

Greylag geese

Greylag geese

Greylag geese

Greylag geese

Soon after this the rain set in for today, and has only just cleared away. The forecast for the weekend looks promising (for October), plus Pretty, the young fox, has taken to daytime visiting again so I may even get some photos of her.

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

Also posted in Birds Tagged , |