Venus Pool - Mute Swans

It's hard to think of a day recently when there aren't up to 40 odd of these around and so unless there's a yellow bill to be seen, they just get ignored!

No end of flight or landing shots to be had. And a crash dive for the Shovelers!

Looks like an underwater mission has been launched for survivors?

After every preen, you can sure of a wing flap?

Or even better a wash and brush up?

Not every shot works!

But sometimes they do?

Now wait a minute.... Surely not..... I'm not about to photograph a COOT!!?

Well, I was photographing this distressed fly on the water when it came along - honest!

Why shouldn't you photograph a Coot doing something interesting??

What's next......Ahhh, my daughter Gemma's favourite bird :-)

Venus Pool - Common Snipe

I've taken literally thousands of images of Common Snipe, why take more? Well you might get something different - a better moment or angle of them? And this light was not to be wasted!

This shoot lasted approximately 2 seconds..... A Snipe flew in to the waters edge, landed and froze in the water. I could see what was going to happen next.....

Best foot forward into cover!

Is it left?

Or right?

My attention then turned to the air.....

Venus Pool - Lapwings

Nooooo! All these birds I habitually ignore!! But  now Lapwings.... They are ever present and that's why they get ignored.... but a more dynamic / acrobatic bird in flight is hard to imagine?

Photographing one (close) in madcap flight harrying corvids with 700mm of reach takes a bit of persistence!

But this not just the season of 'distraction' but  'display' flight too, which pits your wits against TWO of them!

But then at that moment of togetherness, TWO become ONE :-)

And I don't know which one I like the best?

Well there was nowt of note (how many times have I described that as the scene at VP!) but a pretty productive day of birds which aren't worth photographing.??

Venus Pool - Glossy Ibis !!!

This is potentially one of the worst images I've ever posted but one of the most important to turn up at Venus Pool late afternoon....Thanks to Martin Ryder for trying to get the news to me and when I finally got it just after 6 pm, a mad dash at least got me a tickable view of my Shropshire bird no. 229 :-)

It was now 6.20 and after a brief fly around, light was fading fast when it went to roost on the middle island!

The same shot cropped even more.... (ISO 2000 and a mere 1/13th sec exposure) hand held

It departed just before 7.00 am the following morning and despite a brief return witnessed by one or two birders, the final departure was for keeps :-(

Whixall floods - Water Pipit!!

Whilst I'd ticked one of the two Water Pipits with good scope views at  Whixall floods the previous day. The views were so fleeting and distant, I upgraded the view to that of  just about acceptable 'record shot' today! The paler of the two birds only and at closest approach - some 60m distant!...

Nice to see a couple of Golden Plover in flight overhead with a flock of 25 Curlew.

I need a much better shot of either Water Pipit however!!!

Melverley - Whooper families

Here's the long overdue images of the younger members of the Whooper Swan population wintering in the Melverley floods area January 2016. Starting off with part of one of the three family groups amongst the dispersed groups of adults....

The bill pattern in most of the youngsters - typical whooper colouration beyond the nostril in a shade of rather dirty white.

Individuals can of course be recognised by the patterning of the black on the bill and the same families could be picked out as they moved around. They also kept together and tended not to mingle with others.

A few random individual juveniles....

The plumage in the vast majority of juveniles a mottled soft grey....

A gull hoping in vain for a free handout?

And the submerged crop in the field was the reason they were all quite happily settled down here!

Quite a mouthful!

The most interesting family which eventually approached within range had two clearly more advanced juveniles with pink marked bills and completely white plumage! Are these just 'older individuals' or do the other families include more juvenile birds / possibility of Scandinavian origin. It's a strange mix. Icelandic Whoopers are known to develop white plumage more quickly than their Eastern counterparts.

They were munching away at the crop too!

Here's the bill pattern of these two... The first a 'black base yellowneb' and is the lower one evolving into a 'darky' with the extensive line of continuous black up the bill? You can see speckles of yellow pigment beginning to appear which will eventually be complete later this year.

And a lovely nodding pose to end up with!

Repeated counts gave consistent results:

Lone or paired adults without young - 19
Family of two adults with four juvenile - 6
Family of two adults with three juvenile - 5
Family of two adults with two pink billed juveniles - 4

Whilst Kris and myself got a combined count of '38' mostly distant and mobile Whoopers on the 5th, the maximum count was consistently 34 thereafter....

Whatever is accepted, 34 individuals has to be the biggest gathering of Whooper Swans within Shropshire, in recent years certainly that I've ever seen and presumably a combination of the usual returning Whoopers to the Melverley area coupled with those normally gathered at Caersws?

A fantastic Swan spectacle and with flood water reaching epic levels the following day, access to the area was not possible to enjoy them again! Shame Kris missed the 'close up' day too but I have no doubt he was more than happy with what with what Kathmandu had to offer!

Melverley Floods - Yellow-legged Gull

I couldn't resist posting this distant image of an adult Yellow-legged Gull in flight whilst taking a moment off swan count duty!

Back to the Swans.....