Mr Vole

Mr Vole

I had intended wandering around RSPB Old Moor today but a sign near the locked gates said it wouldn't be opening. I quickly formulated a Plan B and drove over to Denaby Ings instead. The carpark was nearly full and I wondered whether other people had tried Old Moor and had the same idea. Probably not, as it turned out, since there was only one woman in Hide 2 when I entered it. I made a comment about the weather, but it didn't look like she wanted a conversation and so I settled down and reviewed the savannah in front of me.

'Gossander over to the left' the lady informed me. Sure enough, one had just floated out from the side of the lake. I snapped away. 'There's a Green Woodpecker in the tree on the other side of the Lake' she added. I had a look, but it was too far away to see even with my long lens. My first impressions were obviously wrong and my fellow bird spotter was open for a chat. She was actually an excellent spotter and pointed me in the direction of a nearby vole and some smaller birds at the back of the hide. A Buzzard landed on a tree directly opposite to us on the other side of the lake. I muttered that Mr Vole should keep his head down. The Buzzard stayed around for 10 minutes and then flew off further along the lake.

Goosander

Juvenile Mute Swan

Whooop, Whooop, Whooop...

For half an hour I was the only occupant of Hide 2. Well, apart from a Robin that came to sit on a nearby post to see what was going off. The watcher being watched. As usual, most of the birds were on the northern side of the lake. The gulls bickered and squabbled, sometimes resulting in aerial fights. There seemed to be more Mute Swans since the last time I came here. Every so often one would fly along the lake making a whooop, whooop, whooop sound. It did make me think that might be how Whooper Swans got their name (I looked it up, and it is the case).

Eventually a fellow came to join me and we started chatting. He had just retired, and he was picking up some of his old hobbies, like wildlife spotting. It had been seven years since he'd last visited Denaby Ings. He said he used to take his daughter for walks around the lake. Two other blokes arrived, and they started to take out their cameras. Whooop, whooop, whooop.... 'What on earth was that?' one of them asked. 'A swan flying along the lake,' his mate replied. The newly retired fellow departed, and I started chatting with the other two blokes. They'd just bought new Canon cameras and were trying them out. They were Canon's new generation of mirrorless camera. My cameras are the old generation type with a mirror. They said that the tracking on their new cameras was amazing. One of them said it was far easier to maintain focus with it. The other one added, 'They'll build a robot next to take the bloody photo for us.'

I'd got enough photos of the lake's residents; a list that included Tufted Ducks, Cormorants, Black Headed Gulls, Coots and Greylags. I wasn't fast enough to capture one of the Kingfisher; it dashed by in a blue flash. I set off walking the trail around the Lake. Further up the trail, I met up again with the newly retired chap. He warned me that I'd need wellingtons to pass the sluice gate further along. I tried it anyway, and it wasn't too bad. This was the first time I'd been on the other side of the Lake. There were some viewing screens around the northeast part, but they were in the process of being reclaimed by the undergrowth. The trail ran alongside a road and had suffered with some fly tipping. For most of the trail, there wasn't a view of the lake either, and so its only real merit was for exercise.

The question now was whether I could afford a mirrorless camera for Christmas.

Kingfisher

Ssshhhh!

I clattered my rucksack down on the bench, at the first hide. The sound reverberated around the metal structure and all the nearby wildfowl took flight to the other side of the lake. Not a good start. Luckily there were no other birders in the hide. I waited around for a while, but the residents of the lake had obviously clocked me. I decided to move on to Hide 2.

I was a bit more careful getting seated at Hide 2.  An elderly man was sat in the prime viewing spot. He had a serious looking telescope, a pair of binoculars around his neck and some scrawled notes on a notepad. I said, 'Good morning', and I got an unenthusiastic reply. I guessed that he wasn't going to be one of those talkative birders. There was much more wildlife to be seen from Hide 2. There was also a marvellous view over the lake to the wooded hillside of High Melton.

One Of The Hawker Dragonflies