Zim Girl's 6th Big Year 2023

[Zim Girl]

Dippers are another lovely bird that we can usually guarantee to find, but getting good pictures is harder.  We have been several times this year and seen them every time in good numbers.  In pairs and as singles our best count was 9 different birds on the stretch of river that we walk, but overall sightings can easily hit double figures.

The following pics are from different visits.

 

UK 50.  Dipper

A bit of early morning stretching.

River Brock  -  11/02/23

Plenty of them spending their time doing this.

 

River Brock  -  11/03/23

Finally, one just willing to pose!

River Brock  -  25/03/23

 

 

 

[michael-ibk]

Great Water Rail! 

[PeterHG]

Agree on the Water Rail, beautiful! But the Dippers are special, too (for me at least). Double numbers on a walk? I'm still at single numbers in my whole life...;)

[Galana]

Trained Water Rails coming to the feeder. Whatever next. Dippers too.

[Tdgraves]

18 hours ago, PeterHG said:

Agree on the Water Rail, beautiful! But the Dippers are special, too (for me at least). Double numbers on a walk? I'm still at single numbers in my whole life...;)

I’ve never seen one here 

[Zim Girl]

29 minutes ago, Tdgraves said:

I’ve never seen one here 

Well you know where to come .

 

18 hours ago, PeterHG said:

Agree on the Water Rail, beautiful! But the Dippers are special, too (for me at least). Double numbers on a walk? I'm still at single numbers in my whole life...;)

We are very lucky, this stretch of river is only 25mins drive from home and we get there quite a lot, esp out of season.  Because of the time of year we are seeing a few pairs together now and hopefully soon some young ones.

 

[BRACQUENE]

I love the Water Rail ; not jealous at all  but still hoping to see one soon

[Tdgraves]

5 hours ago, Zim Girl said:

Well you know where to come .

 

We are very lucky, this stretch of river is only 25mins drive from home and we get there quite a lot, esp out of season.  Because of the time of year we are seeing a few pairs together now and hopefully soon some young ones.

 

 

never seen a water rail at all...

[TonyQ]

A beautiful series of the Water Rail and the Dipper.

I like that you have shown some of the Dipper with head under water.

Shows the behaviour really well 

[Kitsafari]

Splendid Barnie sequence! I love dippers and your images only reinforce that. so lucky to see the bird in double figures!!

[Zim Girl]

I had better start catching up!

First, an easy one from the local park.

 

UK 51.  Lesser Black-backed Gull

Stanley Park  -  24/04/23

 

 

 

[Zim Girl]

UK 52.  Black-headed Gull

 

 

RSPB Leighton Moss  -  15/04/23

 

[Zim Girl]

Always seem to struggle to find this next one up close, so both of these are distant shots.

 

UK 53.  Common Shelduck

Arnside, Lancashire  -  01/04/23

Leighton Moss  -  29/04/23

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Zim Girl

[Zim Girl]

RSPB Leighton Moss is very well known for it's breeding Avocets, but we also have other much smaller areas locally where in recent years they have done very well.

The first two pictures are from LM earlier in the year and the others are from a small marsh just down the road from us, where there are several broods of chicks.

 

UK 54.  Pied Avocet

 

RSPB Leighton Moss  -  18/03/23

 

Check out the number of legs!  I waited a while for them to come out but they were camera shy.

 

Distant chick foraging for food.

Newton Marsh  -  07/05/23

 

 

[Zim Girl]

One of the lovely things about walking in the Lake District fells are the numbers of Wheatears that we see.  One of my favourite summer visitors.

 

UK 55.  Northern Wheatear

Female

 

Male

 

Bampton Common, Lake District  -  18/04/23

 

[Zim Girl]

We had just parked up before the above walk and saw a red squirrel run across the road and up into a nearby tree.  This particular area of the Lakes is still a stronghold for them.

Burnbanks, Far Eastern Lakes 

 

[Zim Girl]

A couple of ducks from earlier in the year.

 

UK 56.  Eurasian Teal

Leighton Moss  -  27/03/23

 

[Zim Girl]

UK 57.  Northern Pintail

Leighton Moss  -  18/03/23

 

[Zim Girl]

This church is home to regular breeding Peregrine Falcons.  They nest very high up and I was about to take a distant picture of one of them perching when it launched off just as I pressed the button.  Not very in focus but I quite liked the action!

 

UK 58.  Peregrine Falcon

 

 

Somewhere in Lancashire  -  09/05/23

 

 

[PeterHG]

Beautiful additions, @Zim Girl! I do love your Avocets and the Peregrine dive.

[Soukous]

49 minutes ago, Zim Girl said:

Somewhere in Lancashire

 

it's always nice to go somewhere

[TonyQ]

Lovely additions. I really like the Peregrine shots!

[Galana]

Me too with the Peregrines and the others ain't half bad either.

[michael-ibk]

Beautiful additions. The Peregrine is cool. Really like the Pintail, a species I always struggle to get a decent photo.

[Zim Girl]

The next batch were all mainly taken over a couple of bank holiday drives through the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire.

 

We came across an adult Lapwing who was trying to herd her chicks across the road to the moorland on the other side, but despite her constant calling, they refused to leave the grass verge.  We drove very carefully past the chicks after waiting for a while.

 

UK 59.  Northern Lapwing

One of the chicks.

Forest of Bowland  -  01/05/23

I have included another earlier Lapwing picture here as the Bowland trips were in very cloudy weather and the colours in this one look better.

Leighton Moss  -  27/03/23