Gone Local

Friday 23rd February

The weather over the last couple of days has mainly been grey and dark so with a forecast today of some sun I fancied a day out..but where. I don't want to travel any great distance so I've decided I'm going local and try to get images of the Hooded Crow that's been in residence in the Haydock area for the last couple of months.

Arriving at a large grass area where the bird has been regularly seen feeding, it strikes me a little odd why this particular location should hold such an attraction for a bird that's more often seen north of the border in Scotland. Anyway the plan for the morning is to remain in the car as close as possible to where the bird is has been reported hoping for a close encounter, but the road location is all wrong with the sun directly facing me, to make matters worse there's a constant stream of dog walkers criss crossing the area, surely the chances of the bird being disturbed flying off is highly likely.

I've been on site for about twenty minuets and a crow fly's over the trees and lands on the grassed area quite close to where I'm parked, it's the Hooded Crow....panic..the camera gear is in the boot of the car as I wasn't expecting it to turn that quick! eventually I grab some images of the bird with what looks like a large piece of bread, two Carrion Crows take an interested and chase the hoodie back over the trees not to return for the remainder of my visit.

A quick review of the images reveal what I expected that all were a little washed out. Time call time and move on to Pennington.

Hooded Crow

Pennington is busy as it's half term school holidays, I didn't think of that ! and I head for Pengy's hide. Shoveler's are now pairing up for the breeding season with rival males jostling each other for potential mates. One individual is busy carrying out some maintenance which makes some nice images with green and reds colours from the vegetation on the far side reflected in the water.

Happy I have some useable images time for home.

Shoveler

Monday 26th February

The "Beast from the East" cold weather is forecast to arrive dumping snow on the UK early morning on Tuesday but today Monday it's sunny and cloud so before I get snowed in it's a repeat of Friday trip to try again for better images of the Hooded Crow at Haydock.

I'm more organised this morning with the camera ready in the car and parked up as before, quick check for mail on my phone, I look up and the Hooded Crow is already there in front of me...not that organised then ! I grab some images but it's the same wash out images as my previous visit so I move to the other side of the area but now with the light behind.

Over the next forty five minuets the crow happily feeds in front of me and I get some decent images but the bird is always wary keeping an eye out for any dogs that get a little too close thinking it's a soft toy !

A quick review of some of the many images all looks ok, but in hind sight I would have wished to have shot wide open to give better background separation as there is no loss of image quality with a Big White.

Happy with the recorded images it's time to move on to Pennington.

Hooded Crow

With the large open water of Pennington it's a cold wind blowing, my best option is to head to one of the hides and get out of the wind. Often it's a case of waiting to see turns up at one of these hides hopefully getting a more unusual shot, that's what happened in this case.

To my right from the undergrowth an incredibly tinny Weasel darts out towards the waters edge, it's on the hunt for a meal looking below tree roots and searching various holes only momentary stopping to look for any movement of startled prey, it's so quick it's all over in no more than twenty seconds. The fact that I had the smaller lens already fitted for possible Water Rail meant that I was able to get shots of the Weasel otherwise I would have been a missed opportunity, not the best image but it's a record of the event.

Weasel

Every so often a Water Rails can be seen slowly making there way from the reeds into the open area to below the bird feeders benefiting from seed dropped to the ground, trying to get images is never usualy successful due to the tangled mass of roots and branches that are always present in the image, never the less it's an opportunity to see an otherwise very secretive bird.

Water Rail