Keen to continue to build my year list, and having a weekend with good friends in Cumbria, we had a good opportunity to visit RSPB Leighton Moss last weekend.
A few years back I saw my first ever Marsh Tit at the feeders and I tend to settle at the feeder each time I visit here until they have visited and I can add this charismatic bird. This time I was keen to compare them to the Willow Tit I had seen the weekend before in Northumbria. It wasn’t long before they turned up albeit they were quite shy and made a quick raid on the feeder and then disappeared into the bushes. It was a while before I could get a satisfactory photo.
Other birds were around too and offered easier photos. A Robin was singing its heart out and because they are often hand fed at Leighton Moss they are very tame. Another took up a Rock Star pose on a nearby Rock.
A Blue Tit and Ruffled Coal Tit also offered nice shots along with a fleeting visit from a Nuthatch to the peanuts.
For their size and bold colours (at least in the male) the Bullfinch has a fairly unassuming quiet “Hugh” call and I was hearing this soon after arrival after the feeder.
I then picked up two separate pairs in the bush who were regularly visiting the feeders too.
We moved on to the Skytower and the Lilian’s Hide which offered a good view over the main pool. The pool was full of all the usual birds, Coots and Moorhen, Teal, Wigeon and Mallard, Mute Swans and Canada Geese. But there were a couple of birds I needed for my year list so I was scanning for them. The first I picked up was a pair of Shoveler sleeping in the reeds. Not a great shot but nice to add them for the year.
The other duck I was hoping to see was the lovely pintail with their distinctive head and neck stripe and long thing tails. I fairly quickly found a few in the reeds. At one point an aggressive Coot moved them on and one of the males swam out to join a pair of Gadwalls.
Today I had brought my thermal scope with me and I was keen to scan for potential Snipe. A quick scan revealed a couple of promising hotspots on a reed island in front of the hide. See if you can pick them out on the first picture (despite their cryptic camouflage) and then use the later shots to ID them.
We had already had distant views of Marsh Harrier from the hide but moving on to the nearby Skytower we had much more open and expansive views as this predator patrolled the pools and reedbeds. Perhaps the best view was when a female harried some gadwall across the nearby channel.
As the day warmed up a near constant stream of Lapwing flew from left to right catching the sunlight on their brilliant white underparts.
Continuing our walk through the wood belt past some super tame Robins, we came again to the Reedbeds and walked out on a board walk to the Tim Jackson hide. At one point we heard a Water Rail in the reeds at what seemed like a distance of only a couple of meters. On occasion it was drumming but we did also hear the amazing tortured pig song too. Unable to get any pictures at this point.
Finding some scrubby trees we were delighted to see a pair of Treecreeper giving obliging views at eye level as they kept flying down to near the ground and then creeping their way back up the trunk.
From the Tim Jackson hide we saw more Snipe and had much better views of Pintail.
I took some digiscoped photos of the Snipe too.
All in all a lovely few hours at Leighton Moss. We had planned to visit the sea pools too but time was out and family duties called so that would have to wait until next time.
The friends we were visiting with included my best school friend Jamie who had the opportunity to talk to the RSPB staff about stocking his wonderful bird paintings, prints and merchandise (which are based on my photos). Do check out and support Jamie Oldham’s work if you can.
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