Swilly Time !

Swillington Ings - 4. 6. 21

Recently I needed to venture into Yorkshire to collect a camera lens that I had foolishly left behind on a shoot and being near Swillings Ings only about five miles from the collection point I thought I'd call in to see how things had moved on from my last visit in April.

Swillings is a cacophony of noise mainly from the masses of Black-headed Gulls that breed amongst the reed beds, together with the Greylag Geese it's deafening, but Im interested to see how the Black-necked Grebes have got on. First impression is the vegetation has grown to a hight that you can no longer get views of the water channels that the grebes cruise, in fact I only hear one call never seeing any during my visit.

Swillings is a massive place to big to cover in a single day so I'm opting to try and get some images of the some of the summer warblers that occupy the reed beds. Fleeting views of a group Bearded Tits is all I've managed, the Reed Warblers are darting around keeping low, the Sedge Warblers are keeping well out out the way, thats how it goes sometimes !

Now at my furthest point on my visit I see a Sedge Warble thats favouring a small bush, might be worth sitting for a while and see what transpires. Over the next hour or so I'm getting some good views, the only issue is I'm attracting other people with cameras...hey ho !

Note...Viewing the image as seen on the screen would appear to be "compressed"...clicking the image to view makes an enormous difference to image quality.

Sedge Warbler

Reed Bunting

Common on the reserve but you have to be a bit sneaky to get near or just plain lucky, I'm lucky !