Stair Rods

You can see that the continuing theme for this week is rain! In fact, I didn't think I would have anything to report this week, you might think that I haven't, until weekend when weather permitting I would be out again. However, I was on a nice farm near Nateby this afternoon and as I and the farmer walked round we had a few bits and pieces.

The lower portion of his land was flooded and looking through the 'stair rods' that were hurtling to earth in great number and velocity we had 14 Whooper Swans and 2 Mute Swans on the flood.

I have borrowed the above picture from Simon Hawtin (thanks Simon) and Simon's photograph could easily have been of my birds except they were taken in good light, on a different farm and in a different year! What I mean is that the make up of birds shown here was similar to what I had today in terms of the mix of adults and juveniles.

Sharing the flood were 70 Teal and 30 Mallards, and as we walked towards the flood we flushed 15 Snipe from the saturated grassland.



Ase walked back towards the farm house along a nice piece of remnant ancient woodland we pushed a flock of 40 Fieldfare and 15 Redwings ahead of us from the scrubby edge of the woodland. It was raining hard, but it was a pleasant afternoon stroll amongst the 'stair rods'.