3 wednesdays ago tomorrow

our almost, you could say, annual trip to Burnsal bridge in north Yorkshire. equipped with fishing nets and a plastic fish tank (since the glass one broke). First though we went for a walk up the river for a walk. as soon as the path ended on the concrete ridge and because more natural, we spotted a dipper sheltering from the rain. Luckily it was quite bold, either that or the rain
drowned out all other sounds.

No sooner had I finished with the dipper, I noticed a spotted flycatcher in the trees above. They are quite reliable at this site with my best ever spotted fly encounter here. So its always nice to see them.

Then one was joined by another which was also quite nice...

The rest of the walk up passed quite uneventful with only a brief appearance by a grey wagtail. luckily the rain started to stop and so it became a lot more enjoyable. On the way back, however, we managed to spy a goosander socialising with the mallards quite close to our bank.

Then further down river we found another one and this time the sun was out allowing me to get some much better photos of goosanders. I think this bird is a female but I cant really tell because all the birds look the same at the minuet because of the moult. I learnt this when a guy came into b.o.g to talk to us about goosanders.

At the duck feeding area where we went fishing we spotted another bird that is common at this site which is mandarin. This one was sat up on the raised bank with the mallards so was quite easy to photograph.

Fishing-wise we didn't catch any crayfish but had a bumper catch of 10 minnows and at least 1 giant stone loach, plus several baby's. there were also lots of bullheads but due to the state of the tank that we had put them in I couldn't really take any photos.