Zim Girl's 3rd Big Year 2020

[Zim Girl]

A regular visitor to the garden.

 

61.  Common Blackbird

Back garden  -  07/05/20

 

[Zim Girl]

Finally for now, a couple of the local corvids found on a bank holiday walk from home.

 

62.  Rook  (Apparently food is carried to the young in a pouch below the mouth, which can be seen in the picture)

Fields near home  -  08/05/20

 

[Zim Girl]

63.  Western Jackdaw

 

Fields near home  -  08/05/20

 

Hopefully more to come soon now that we are allowed out to walk anywhere 

 

[Zim Girl]

We had been out for a walk at the weekend without much success with birds, but when we got back and walked into the garden we had a lovely surprise  -  a little Goldcrest was having a bath in the waterfall of our pond.  I have only seen a Goldcrest a couple of times ever and never in the garden, so I am going to indulge in a few photos to celebrate!

 

64.  Goldcrest

 

 

 

 

 

Back garden  -  16/05/20

 

[Galana]

Indulge away. What a great surprise. I love the expression on the first photo. Says it all!

[pedro maia]

That´s a great sighting!!

[michael-ibk]

A very cool bath guest!

[TonyQ]

A brilliant sighting and really well photographed 

[Dave Williams]

Goldcrest are difficult to photograph..and find for that matter! lovely images.

[xelas]

Great sequence! Time to add a bird bath to our garden.

[Soukous]

Lovely Goldcrest sequence

[Peter Connan]

Love seeing birds bathing. But it's quite difficult to photograph. You have made great use of the opportunity!

[PeterHG]

What a wonderful series of the bathing Goldcest!

[Zim Girl]

Thank you all very much for your comments.  I was delighted to see it in the garden!

[Zim Girl]

So now we have the chance to travel a bit further afield, we took a drive further into the Forest of Bowland through an area known as the 'Trough'.  This is always a very good place to see Red Grouse, pheasants, meadow pipits, lapwing, curlew, oystercatchers etc.  We heard cuckoos a couple of times which is always nice, although @Galana, it will not be Larry sadly, as I believe he did not make it back past Libya last summer.

 

65.  Tree Pipit

Forest of Bowland  -  20/05/20

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by Zim Girl
Changed ID of bird

[Zim Girl]

66.  Red Grouse

Female

Male

Forest of Bowland  -  20/05/20

 

 

[Zim Girl]

67.   Common Pheasant

 

Forest of Bowland  -  20/05/20

 

[Zim Girl]

We saw a Grey Wagtail at some distance catching insects above the river.  We have also seen them in our garden on occasion so I have included a picture from earlier in the year as a proof shot.

 

68.  Grey Wagtail

Forest of Bowland  -  20/05/20

 

Back garden  -  31/01/20

 

[Zim Girl]

69.  Eurasian Stonechat

Forest of Bowland  -  20/05/20

 

[Galana]

4 hours ago, Zim Girl said:

as I believe he did not make it back past Libya last summer.

Sadly yes. This year has been worse with only 5 making it back nut I did get to see one locally twice or thrice but no snap.

Is not your Meadow Pipit a Tree Pipit? The finer flank stripes suggest it is. How was it displaying? Ground or tree? If I am right grab it now, as Meadows are easier.

[Zim Girl]

17 hours ago, Galana said:

Is not your Meadow Pipit a Tree Pipit? The finer flank stripes suggest it is. How was it displaying? Ground or tree? If I am right grab it now, as Meadows are easier.

 

Aagh, I did think it looked a little bit different but I assumed juvenile. It was just sat on the post so can't say about how it was displaying. I had several other pipit pictures which would def have been meadow but I deleted because this was the better picture. Oh well, as you say, they are easier so I can get another one. I will edit, thank you.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Zim Girl

[Zim Girl]

A trip to the Lake District soon sorted out the missing pipit.  The place is full of them, and skylarks too but they are just a bit harder to pin down so still working on that one.

 

70.  Meadow Pipit

Far Eastern Fells, Lake District  -  30/05/20

[Zim Girl]

A quick shift away from birds for a moment.  In another fairly remote part of the Lakes we came across one of the last few remaining herds of wild ponies. Beautiful animals that are completely at home in the fells.

 

 

 

 

[Zim Girl]

The weather was pretty rubbish last weekend so we stayed quite local and went for a walk along the Lancaster canal.  This is always a lovely walk whatever the weather and quite a hotspot for kingfishers. We did see one but I am holding out for a better picture.  Another bird that is usually seen is the Grey Heron and it didn't disappoint.

 

71.  Grey Heron

Lancaster Canal  -  06/06/20

 

[Zim Girl]

We also came across this lovely family of mute swans sitting on the edge of the canal path.