Polemere - Yellow Wagtail

The cold weather held them up a bit but a Yellow Wagtail is one of those 'must see' birds amongst the early migrants...

Always drawn to the horse dung which = insects!

A lucky one perched on a post!

'Thinks' its's been a long time without a 'Channel!!

Polemere - Pink footed Goose

It's been a productive month of birding and the last day of January was to produce TWO interesting targets! First off was an obliging Pink-footed Goose at Polemere and a thankyou to Tony Evans for getting the news out early (a good excuse for getting the shopping done later).

The dark head of the 'Pink' and pink band on the bill make it an easy find, no matter how many other geese were present.

Fingers crossed it would come closer?

It certainly did!

And then touched down in the shallows...

The natives weren't exactly accommodating!

The whole session took only 30 mins!

The second highlight was to be another breed of Goose setting a Patch record count...

Coming up soon...

Polemere - Green winged Teal

Polemere has a good track record for Ducks and news, courtesy of Richard Vernon, came out of a Green-winged Teal there today! Despite the horrendous light, it would have been rude to ignore it...

Once in the hide, it was probably the most distant Teal but after being spooked a couple of times, it relocated to the 'near' side of the hedgerow!

Despite the occasional spat with male Teal, the GWT was very cooperative in providing a Eurasian Teal for comparison!  The white vertical bar (not the strongest I've seen) seemed adequate enough and the deeper coloured wash of the breast spot on! 

There was complete absence of a white horizontal stripe! The green stripe on the head was bordered only faintly by the buff border and restricted to below the eye.

More of the same here...

The back and flanks are only finely vermiculated...

He posed for this final image quite nicely 

Looks a good un :-)

Polemere - Garganey pair

Garganey are classy Ducks, always worth a look? Sometimes distant, sometimes close and this evening was fortunately the latter! I started with views of 60m or so and ended up a lot closer...

Some pics from a very brief appearance on the water...

I didn't expect this!! It disappeared under the bank and now walking through the vegetation towards me...

Crikey!

Great bird, great light, a great evening!

Polemere - Yellow Wagtail

Chanced a quick look at Polemere this afternoon and welcomed my first Yellow Wagtail of the year, a cracking male too!

Basically tracking him as he approached me on the mud!

Welcome to Shropshire and as it flew out, happy breeding somewhere?

On this day (Jan 21st)... 2013 - White-fronts, GWT and Redshank in snow!

This flashback #Onthisday in 2013 was an incredible session featuring White-fronted Goose, Green-winged Teal and Redshank all in the snow!

Quite a session at Polemere today, it's rare for me to stay more than 20 mins and I ended up there for five hours! It will probably take 5 days to go through all the images and I'm up to me eyes with talks and other things but keep looking back.... there are plenty more images to come!

The skulking Green-winged |Teal decided to skulk no more - maybe due to the fox having a nap near it's usual haunt :-)

Now that's what I call not skulking !

A Redshank was showing particularly well too (when it wasn't hidden by the hedge!)

Underlit quite nicely from the snow.

Not an everyday sight!

Again, there's more.... these conditions don't occur very often but are worth every minute spent out in them!

Saving the best until last. I couldn't have dreamt that the Teal would be upstaged but unbelievably... it was!! My serious 'Shropshire' bogey goose was about to get cooked - not just by one but two little stunners :-)

Yes, County tick and Tunnock's teacake down the hatch after I'd decided to scan the Geese in the field adjacent to the horse paddock. First one.... then another, smaller Grey Goose with distinctive barring on the belly, eventually heads popping up and yesssss - White fronts!

Many more to sort but here's a couple to be going on with.....

Eventually they flew the short distance down to the water....

Plus a bit of foraging in the snow....

What a seriously good day!!

Polemere - Flava of the week?

There's been an interesting female Yellow Wagtail hanging about at Polemere for most of May. James Grundy noted it on the 4th and I first saw it on the 6th.  Here's a sequence taken from a 'walk past' on the mud today... The most striking feature is that white supercilium and grey head...   

 

The throat is also white...

Here's the grey head and upperparts suffused greenish yellow...

A trawl of the web reveals a few very similar birds (some captioned M. flava and others of less likely subspecies) Rather than agonise for too long on the identity crisis, have a look and let me know what you think?!

Polemere - Hobby paddling!

One of those 'did that just happen' moments happened today! I was passing Polemere and thought it was worth a quick look with a Garganey in mind? Not a chance, but plenty of swallows and after 5 mins or so, the alarm went up, even the Geese got alarmed! And then the reason became obvious on the far bank! A Hobby...

After flying towards the near bank it was partly hidden behind the hedge. But then it simply strode into view...

Marching down to the waters edge!

Well, it was rather hot...

An proceeded to cool down its feet in the water!!

But not for long, just look at those flies scatter...

Another one for the 'Great Hobby' moments album and I've been lucky enough to have a few :-)

Polemere - Swallow

I seem to be finding a few more common species in the viewfinder and before the Hobby got my attention as bird of the day. The swallows gathering mud and perching nearby were serious contenders?

Bit of a frame filler!

Worthy of a closer crop!

And just that small turn of the head brings out the iridescence - stunning.