Venus Pool - Swallows but is it Summer?

I left the Water Pipits with large rain spots starting to fall and headed over to VP with hopes of a wader or two? With the water level still high and precious little mud not much chance of holding anything at the moment, at least the hirundines seemed happy! My first Swallow here had flown through on the 24th and by late afternoon there were at least five plus c30 Sand Martins.....

Don't expect too much from these!

One of the Swallows in a brief moment between squalls!

And an arty slow shutter speed Shoveler in the torrential rain

I know one Swallow does not a Summer make but do five - surely not given the conditions!

Venus Pool - Shovelers

A familiar conversation took place at VP several times today, usually preceded by .... "Where have you been?"....  "What's happened to your blog?"..... "Why aren't you posting images?"....

The simple answer was "I've been mega-busy for the previous two months and the reality is (when I have been birding) - nothing of note had been in front of me to be photographed!"

I tend to get enthused only when there 'something of note' in front of me! But then I thought, the light is awesome today, lets see what we can do with the resident birds? The camera came out of the bag!

'Take-one' was Shovelers, 70+ of which have been present recently.....

The bill may be outrageous but the drakes are smart ducks!

Whichever way you look at them!

Constantly dabbling means the feathers are always wet however!

See what I mean?

A riot of colour from the rear!

Something has grabbed his attention?

Yeah, quite a looker!

Full steam ahead.....

Now that's a bill to be proud of!

Which is more than can be said of this female Wigeon?

Who think's she's a Phalarope?

Mute Swans next......

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!!!