last day-wednesday 18th febuary 2009

went to leighton moss today as was promised and looked forward to seeing a possible bittern. as soon as we got there we went to the first hide for a look. i was first there and diddnt have the spotting scope and after scanning the reedbeds found nothing. then my dad arrived with the scope and after going over the reedbeds about 5 times i did actually find a bittern at the far side of the lake. it was very impressive although smaller than i expected red deer bullfinch cormorant goldeneye graylag geese teals pintail gadwall wigeon also seen today were: grey heron little egret caucasian pheasant a good holiday

tuesday 17 febuary 2009 day 3 of holiday

no idea what we were doing today so decided to go to a town which was small so didnt stay there. then we stumbled across a wildlife trust nature reserve so had a look around that with some impressive results

large twite flock

little egret

merlin yay my first ever. it flew right past us and i was suprised to see how small it is in comparison to a kestrel.

shoveler

canada geese

widgeon

shelduck

also there were:

inumerable herring gulls

2 skylark

5 semi-wild emperor geese

barnacle geese

red breasted mergansers

teals

monday 16th febuary 2009, day 2 of the holiday

day 2 and we decided to go to arnside via the train. this ivolved us going over morcambe bay via bridge. this ment we got to see all the shelducks and redshanks on the way there. once there we began walking.

   

a pretty song thrush in a field

   

large numbers of redshanks in the mud

 

a heron fishing

 

a curlew

 

he gave up

the bay was swarming with flounders which meant we could see some very comical and sometimes horrific bird behavior

after stealing this flounder from a Lesser Black-backed Gull the cormorant proceeded into the sea to eat it whereupon it dropped and lost it.

a Great Black-backed Gull pulling the same trick only it managed to succeed in eating its prey

all in all a thrilling day.

sunday 15th febuary 2008, day 1 south cumbria/north lancashire holiday

day one of our holiday. first things first-we went to grange-over-sands our local town to have a look around. lucky for me they had an ornamental park with a wildfowl colection so began to take some photos

wigeons at war

ruddy shelduck in a flap

hawaian goose or nene, worth seeing before they become extinct

shelduck having a wash

their still at it

when we came back to the site we discovered the people caravaning across from us had put up a bird table. so i sat and waited to see what would come

coal tit

great tit chaseing off a blue tit

treecreeper up a tree

marsh tit-one of the best birds this holiday

a nuthatch

this was to be a promising holiday, my dad had said we would go to leighton moss RSPB so my head was full of bittern after they evaded me last time.

manor heath sunday