I apologise for the short blogging break, life is busy and sometimes uncontrollable but I know you’ll forgive me. You always do!
Today I wanted to share a few photos from my mornings walk around Godmanchester Nature Reserve – I saw a few birds I haven’t seen before so I was pretty excited. As they are new birds for me and my ID skills aren’t that great, if I’ve got them wrong then do let me know in the comments!
First though, a few views from around the reserve:
Wigeon Pond
Highsides & Roman Lake
The start of the new willow fence overlooking Roman Lake
Teddy’s Lake
Cooke’s Stream
Roman Lake
Now for a few hints that Spring is on its way – because that cheers me up!
An interesting fungus:
And now finally, the part I’m most excited to share – the birds!
The first bird I managed to photograph was the goldfinch. They were near the bird hide, happily getting the seeds out the teasels until I came along and disturbed them accidentally! I was lucky enough not to scare them all off, so I got these two photos:
Goldfinch
Goldfinch
A little further along I saw one of my favourite birds – the robin. Bold as brass – maybe hoping I’d uncover some worms for him!
Robin
Next along the path was this very delightful female Bullfinch. This is the first time I’ve ever been able to photograph one of these birds, so I was delighted.
Female Bullfinch
At a convenient point overlooking Roman Lake I simply had to photograph this coot – the reflection was so clear!
Coot
Now the next two pictures are a bird I’ve never seen before at all. Both pictures are of the same bird as I tried to get enough pictures to ID it! They are the best photos as it was quite far away, but I think they hold enough information to ID the bird! I believe it is a male Pintail due to the tail shape, the creamy patch near its rump and the two white stripes going up the back of its head. Does anyone know if these are a regular winter visitor to the reserve? This bird was seen on Roman Lake.
Male Pintail
Male Pintail
The next bird I believe is a rather sleepy Goldeneye, mostly due to the shape of its head. Again if you have any other suggestions do let me know! Seen on Roman Lake. UPDATE: This isn’t a Goldeneye, but a female tufted duck, thanks Pam!
Female tufted duck
The next bird is one that I love the noise it makes – like a squeaky toy! This is, of course, the wigeon. We’ve got quite a few on the reserve this year on several of the lakes which is nice to see.
Wigeon
Next is a bird I’m sure you all know, the Canada Goose.
Canada Goose
The next bird was hopping around pecking the ground for some food, not sure it found much. I’m pretty sure its a Dunnock.
Dunnock
Next is one of my favourite birds again! A heron, sat rather grumpily in a tree on Island Lake.
My final bird of the day was a bird that I see often on Wigeon Pond, but keep forgetting to look up! I think this is a male Gadwall.
Male Gadwall
So that concludes my collection of photos from today’s visit to the reserve. I hope you enjoyed looking through these as much as I enjoyed taking them and I hope to be back blogging regularly again soon!
The sleepy duck is a female tufted duck, you can just see the crest on the back of the head – lovely photos. Brilliant to see the pintail as well.
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Ah, that’s good to know – I hadn’t noticed the crest! Thank you!
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