Saturday 9 January 2016

Melverley floods - Whooper Swans

This was my fourth successive day cruising the floods and it was business as usual on the wildfowl front but the gull numbers were plummeting. It was also my lucky day! Apart from one brief encounter at dusk with a family of Whoopers, they were normally 100's of metres away! As I approached of the best vantage points, there were at least ten Whooper Swans within decent range! I parked up in a gateway.....

#Icouldn'tbelievemyluck

Lots of photo opportunities as they had clearly 'accepted' me!




Swimming ever closer to me!




And feeding on the submerged crop....






One individual having a preen!



And eventually, close enough for close up crops!




I had hopes of trying to photograph every individual but with them criss crossing, I settled for a random approach.




Indigestion inducing quite big tuberous roots... attempts at swallowing!




A common problem!


Getting two in focus was a challenge!




But finally lead to the images of the session!




Images of the juveniles to follow and I finally managed to get an accurate count of the family groups! Coming shortly!