A Little Bit Of Cuteness...

Canada Goose Gosling...

WeBS

I was asked a while back if I would monitor the water birds at Reddish Vale as part the 2010 WeBS survey.

WeBS is The Wetland Bird Survey and collects important information on the population, breeding and environment of UK water birds.

In their own words..." The principle aims of WeBS is to identify population sizes, determine trends in numbers and distribution and to identify important sites for water birds."

The WeBS survey covers almost every area of the UK and data is collected by hundreds of volunteers from across the nation.

My allocated area of Reddish Vale isn't exactly the most glamorous, but is still none the less important amongst the grand scheme of things.

My first count was taken this morning during very heavy rain and despite the unpleasant conditions it was still rather enjoyable.

One thing I personally like about WeBS is the emphasis isn't just on rarer species such as Avocet and Bittern but recognizes the importance of our more common water birds such as Mallard and Coot.

No images from today's count because of the heavy rain, but I'll leave you with a selection of water birds taken from around the UK in better weather...

Geese In The Mist

A mist rose from the Mill Ponds and spread across the Vale on Sunday morning, producing a rather beautiful scene...

I love these misty mornings and the light produced by the combination of mist and the hazy rising sunshine can be breathtaking sometimes.

I was a little disappointed not to be able to capture anything exciting swimming through the mist and I had to settle for the Canada Geese...

The light wasn't too shabby after the mist had lifted and the calm water allowed for some nice reflections...

In A Flap

A few common Waterfowl species giving their wings a workout...

Canada Goose

Mute Swan

Mallard

A Few From This Evening

I managed to finally drag myself out into the miserable English weather earlier this evening after nearly going stir crazy due to lack of photography!

It was actually quite a pleasant day at times today, but by the time I finally managed to get out of the office, the gloom had descended.

I decided to pay a visit to Etherow Park and quickly located the House Sparrow colony I photographed the other week.

The light was fading fast, but I was lucky enough to get a few shots away...

The rain soon started to fall and photo opportunities were fading with the light.

It was as they say "nice weather for ducks" although this female Mallard didn't seem to care all that much about it...

A flock of Canada Geese came flying towards me in the poor light.

Shutter speed was low, so I focused on one bird and panned around on him has he came past.

I've always enjoyed taking slow shutter shots of wildlife in motion and this one although not quite as slow as I would of liked, didn't turn out too bad...

New Life (2)

A trip to the Vale early this evening and following on from the last post, I thought I'd share with you some more images of the springs new arrivals...

It really was a very hot evening and definitely not the sort for roaming about, so I sat on a bench close to one of two broods of Canada Geese and watched the youngsters explore their new world...

2010: The Year so far (3)

I returned to Reddish Vale the following day (3rd) and was blessed with some wonderful winter sunshine.

The birds were starving, so I took with me a big bag of seed and some crushed fat balls which made me very popular indeed!

I also had some Turkey, left over from Christmas which I planted in the woods hoping to entice the foxes...No luck following a 2 hour stakeout I'm afraid!

Outfoxed again, I threw the remaining food I'd brought for the birds onto the frozen lake and took a few shots of some of the grateful recipients...