Birds on Lady Fen Welney

Up till very recently, it would have been impossible to see three species of Egret, Little White, Greater White and Cattle Egrets, all together in England but here they are feeding together on Lady Fen Welney sharing the habitat with Grey Heron, Curlew and Pied Wagtail. It seems at Welney the Magpies have taken over from Jackdaws delousing the deer.

Herons Nest Building

We spent a very enjoyable hour or so watching Herons collecting nest materials.They were collecting both from the trees themselves - mainly willow - and from the ground and often seemed satisfied with even a quite small twig though they returned fairly quickly then to collect another!

Paxton Pits Snow, Ice and Birds

With the Pits themselves  frozen, the water birds have congregated by the river, while smaller birds are struggling to find food in the snow covered vegetation. Only the Heron remained on Hernonry South Lake. The Barn Owl was out quartering around midday while the Goldcrest was tirelessly hunting on the river bank. Bright sunny day so the views were magical with the ice patterns and frost on top of snow

'Soft' Day at Paxton Pits

Paxton Pits show a dramatic rise in water level over the last couple of weeks with a lot of the islands now submerged. This has greatly reduced the numbers of birds to be seen but it certainly looked wonderful in the soft light with patches of mist over the water. Mostly shot at 1/500th except Herons at 1/60th - still experimenting with shutterspeeds and sharpness.

Paxton Cormorants, Herons and Egrets

Beautiful sunny morning for a visit to Paxton to test my telephoto lenses that has dried out after a couple of weeks in a warm airing cupboard. It appears to be functioning as before. The Cormorants, Herons and Little and Great Egrets were very active chasing each other around and very vocal!!