The males were doing their comical display and then calling their unusual call, echoing all around. eventually they drifted away so We began to wander off, but I glanced back and noticed that the birds were double backing on themselves so I tracked back to try again. sadly though the sun had gone in for these shots so The reflection is awful but you can see that one of the males is about a third of the way through his display so its a decent effort given the conditions.
Leaving them to go and join my mum and brother at the Keswick boat renting place where we would get on a boat before lunch. I suggested that we go over to where the mergansers were, although that is where we go normally anyway, so my idea would probably not have not made much difference anyway. It was only about half way round the island that we encountered the birds I had hoped, in the form of a pair. The boat gives you a different perspective3 on the birds than from the land, and you could also get much closer to them.
we followed this pair around the island until we came to rather a lot of mergansers, all at pretty close quarters and doing their display again. These were a bit less shy than the pair that we had found originally and didn't swim away as much.
Then my brother, who was rowing, spotted a pair on the shore, not a view you often get with mergansers so it was a bit of a surprise to see this but never-the-less a wonderful photo oppertunity. Even on land the male was displaying which i would have thought a bit difficult becuase in the water they often dip themselves under the water with just the head sticking out, but he seemed to manage OK on the land!
This pair was then joined by another female who seemed to be in the way rather a bit becuase the female of the pair suddenly stood up, although it may have been our fault so we backed off a bit. I cant say much about merganser family life so I dont know if they are loyal to a partner or what but it seemed to create a tenser atmosphere in merganser terms!
Just as we were setting off to leave a pair of stunning males swam past us, seemingly uncaring and gave me another chance to get some great merganser photos, although I will say that none of them came out very clear.
Moving round to the farther islands we spotted a colony or flock of branacle geese, which i would have though being a bit late so i was doubtful was to weather they were actually wild animals, but i think it is likely given their numbers. They were on an island a bit further out, which was not privatly owned so i wondered about, if they were a colony, how they got on with people landing on the island who would think it funny to chase the geese. Indeed as we were there watching a group of kayakers landed on the shingle beach and wndered into the woods. It must have made a difference becuase on subsequent days they were on the privatly owned islands.
As you can see from the above, there were rather a lot of barnacle geese there and they were calling as well, their honking calls booming out from the trees. A bit further on, as we were crossing the lake a lone adult flew past us offereing me great photo oppertunitys, although i diddnt take them because my photo ability is naf!
The other side of the lake was much less busy, the main noise coming from the songbirds, chaffinches and robins, singing from the woods along the side. It was also very calm, hardly a ripple and very limited birdlife. However, just before we were going to set off back a lone male merganser appeared and swum past us so i got a few more photos just for good measure!
After that we took a trip into town which provided very little aside from tourism. Keswick is a very pretty little town and it is not dominated by big name brands, the largest supermarket being a "booths" which i have not seen anywhere else in Britain, although doubtless it is there.
When we arrived back at the caravan site I tried to find something to kill the time and so set up a photography stage with some blackthorn leaves and a bird feeder. As i was cutting the blackthorn an Orange tip butterfly flew past me. This is the last butterfly I need to complete my "Butterfly record collection" because when i got the idea last year, their flight season had ended. However I soon learnt that these were not the butterflys that landed on pretty flows, seldom they landed at all! the below photo is the only one out of about twenty orange tips that i saw all weeks that landed. And even this one landed beyond a barbed wire fence and brambles, so was impossible to get to.
Back to the stage and It was almost ready except that...the light was being blocked by the trees! what a nightmare. It did however do its job and birds landed on it almost immediately. The first birds were blue tits but they look virtually black! I decided to leave it and try again later, when the light would be better. It was convenient that there was a football match on at that time so I could photograph birds, sit in the caravan in comfort and listen to football all at the same time! eventually the sun dipped so that the light was behind the bird, but at least it was there. In the new conditions the first bird was a coal tit.
They were a reasonable effort I suppose but the blue tit that followed offered much more to the photo, and the sun had dipped even lower in the sky, so the light was even better.
They are a little rough but what can you expect, I'm not a pro. The football match, in case anyone was wondering was a 5-0 thumping for Bolton by stoke, who were the team I wanted to win the match anyway given that Bolton are a lancashire team, and stoke are not, so a good day all round really!
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