Birthday Birding

A summary of my day out is on the Outside the Patch page.

A few signs of spring

I haven't posted anything for a while, so here are a few photographs from Saturday afternoon's walk around Fen Drayton Lakes.
We dropped Holly off at her Wildlife Explorers Group and took Jet for a walk around Ferry Lagoon, along the river, down the western side of Drayton Lagoon to Moore Lake & back along the Busway. It was relatively quiet for birds, but there were some nice signs of the approaching spring.

Willow catkins

As well as the willows, the hazels also have catkins. Many species of tree are in bud, ready to burst into leaf any day now and there is a small amount of blackthorn blossom showing too.

Signs of spring - willow catkins & poplar buds next to the river, with Holywell church in the background

 When we got back to the Discovery Zone, the Wildlife Explorers had been very busy making wildlife art from natural materials found around the reserve. Here are some of their efforts:

A log garden

Decorating the log pile

A snail made of snail shells - this was Holly's

A nest

Lizard - I love the catkin tail bands

Lizard - head on view

Harlequin Duck

Another successful long-distance twitch, this time for a drake Harlequin Duck. Read about it on the Outside the Patch page.

Harlequin Duck - not my photo!

1000 page views

I've had my first thousand page views. Thanks everyone!
Always happy to hear what you think about the blog.

Andy

Splashing around the lakes

Here are a selection of photos from my afternoon walk around Fen Drayton Lakes:

Jet enjoyed splashing in the floodwater on Holywell Ferry Road

Drake Goldeneye, Ferry Lagoon

Goosanders & other wildfowl, Ferry Mere

Swavesey church

Wigeon, Ferry Lagoon

Ferry Pond

Balloon over Holywell

Goldeneyes, Ferry Lagoon

Magpie, Holywell Lake

One way to get through the floods

Another way!

Pine Grosbeak

Here are a couple of photos taken by one of my travelling companions, Jim Lawrence, from when we twitched the Pine Grosbeak.

Foot It - the results

For those of you that are interested, I came 38th out of 109 in the Foot It challenge. Scoring was based on the percentage of species seen against your original target.
Of those people that entered their lists onto the BUBO listing website, I came 5th out of 41. This is based on actual number of species seen.