December 2011 - Grey Wagtail in the garden...again!

Sunday 4th: 9:25am and a shout wakes me from my slumber: "the Grey Wagtail is in the garden!" I bounced out of bed to the window looking out on the back garden. There it was...a Grey Wagtail bobbing along around the pond! This is the first time that I have seen the bird in the garden and it is absolutely astounding. Grey Wagtails are countryside birds that frequent fast flowing rivers and streams. What it is doing here, in the middle of a built-up area is anybodies guess. By the looks of it, the Wagtail is a female and spent about 25 minutes around the pond before it flew off. Let's hope it returns soon.

These two short videos were taken by Mel through the window. The photos were also taken by Mel.

December 2010: Donny Lakeside Frozen

Sunday 26th: The exceptionally cold weather is unrelentless! Temperatures are still well below zero and as a consequence, the fish pond in the back garden has been frozen for days now. This morning, one or two birds ran across the ice covering the pond and when a Pied Wagtail did the same, Mel took this snap prior to it having a cold bath!

The Lakeside, where a variety of waterfowl hang out, has completely frozen over and with a thickness of about 2 - 3 inches! I knew that some of it was frozen but not as much as I saw! I drive past the Lakeside on my way to work each morning and the light dusting of snow had fallen onto the ice and itself frozen.

The grassland around the lake that the geese use is rock hard with no tufts of grass to be eaten. Canada Geese, Black-headed Gulls and various other waterfowl walked the ice in search of food. Later in the coming week a thaw should eat into the icy conditions.

July 2010 - Father-in-Law's Heron problem!

Friday 16th: My Father-in-law has a garden pond that gets admiring glances from a Heron, sometimes more than that, the Heron has skewered fish in the past. As this image shows, early morning and the arrival of the Heron. Now is it the same bird each time? Who knows but as my Father-in-law has spread a net over the pond to protect the fish. The Heron has been seen wading out over the net. It has deduced that if it walks onto the mesh then the mesh will sink and this may give it a better chance of trapping any slow moving fish, skewer and snack on it. One very smart Heron! These two photos were snapped by Hadi on the morning of the 11th July.