THE SECOND CHANCE SEDGE

Well this was lucky ..

I cold only stand there and watch these the day before and had decided I was going to be in too much pain to go back and film them. My camera equipment was also buried .. deep.

But I dragged out my .. Nikon P900 after I realised I was being .. forced outside once again and I managed to get lucky ..

And film and photograph that Sedge Warbler ..

https://www.flickr.com/gp/89426160@N05/06FnQH

EDIT: 

I forgot to add that just prior to seeing this Sedge Warbler I heard what I thought sounded like a loud .. grasshopper. I then thought "Wait a minute? That is not a Grasshopper Warbler is it?" and then a warbler appears. There had been a rumour of one being seen or heard and I thought this is what this bird was.

I have not been an avid bird watcher since I was a child, concentrating more on other animals like exotic finches, reptiles, amphibians and fish over the years. As soon as I saw the pictures in a book I remembered what a Grasshopper Warbler looked like and could not believe that I did not remember its pattern and colour ..

But then I do have this memory issue which I have had a number of years that has progressively gotten worse over a long period of time.

SHELLS, OYSTERS & ALDERS

A bit late uploading these .. and the videos but .. that is because of my memory issues and I have two cameras, or had that day, to deal with.

I forgot about this non-professional camera!

Anyhoo .. we went out on a warm but very windy day .. which blew me about while I was filming with the zoom at full .. win .. chat! Lol.

This was on Walthamstow Wetlands .. or opposite Walthamstow Wetlands .. not sure if it is all the same place. Another place is called The Paddocks .. no .. just don't! It is on Ferry Lane in Walthamstow not far from Tottenham Hale.

While out we saw Shelducks, Oystercatchers and some Alder Flies, the latter I do not ever recall seeing before that day. Caddis Flies, yes. Alder Flies not so sure ..

THE RED CRESTED SOLDIERS

I title it that because watching the Red Crested Pochards put me in mind of a load of soldiers on parade. In one video below the males are all bobbing their beaks in what must be some kind of mating courtship .. thing?

I was not expecting to see these and annoyingly and due to the pain and my health condition I went out without my very best lens.

I had gone out because it was supposed to be sunny all afternoon. It was sunny for about three minutes in total .. thank you yet again, weather people! I had intended to got artistic and bokeh shots of flowers for my other digital photography blog, as I had the day before. Though admittedly it is somewhat early in the year and there is not a lot about. Some wild violets were seen but not very good condition and there were some Daffodils, Hyacinths and some trees with white blossom. But the weather was shit and dull and I stumbled across these Red Crested Pochards.

I need to open up the aperture a little with this lens in future for birds.. an f1.4. This was also at Finsbury Park in London.

Here are some photos and videos ..

Got some close ups of Common Pochards too ..

Videos ..

THE REEDS & THE LITTLE BUNTING

For two days in a row I visited the Walthamstow Wetlands. I was there yesterday.

Well what a day?!

The weather men got it wrong for the umpteenth time recently for London, no snow the other Thursday after they said it was. The day before this day it was supposed to rain around 3pm to 4pm and barely spat. This day was supposed to be partly sunny fro midday to 5pm with no rai at all! Take a wild guess at what happened?! It rained and transitioned from fairly heavy to light and the sun did come out .. eventually. Around the closing time of the place we were in which is 4pm.

Tens of millions on a weather computer a couple years back? Stop .. just stop.

Anyhoo we waited by the section which was said to have Reed Buntings and a Little Bunting among them. Got hatting to e nice bunch of chaps while there, one dedicated soul was a Scot who had come down from Warrington of all places.

Now I was convinced I had the Little Bunting on film and pictures a dozen times .. but ..

I was not familiar with what young and hen Reed Buntings looked like nor familiar with the same for the Little Bunting. A chestnut coloured face was all I had to go on.

I also still do not possess my birding lens, the 70-400mm Sony f4!

At the end someone pointed out the Little Bunting while it was close to us and feeding. I spotted what they were referring to and though 'oh .. I have filmed that several ties' and was happy. Well as it turns out it was not the Little Bunting and an immature male Reed Bunting.

After going through the videos and the photos I had managed to get one of each of the Little Bunting so was not a complete disaster. Nor did the Sony A99 II and its 70-2mm f2.8 and 1.4 Teleconverter get wet for nothing.

Little Bunting in the video below on the right

What I believe to be an immature Male Reed Bunting ..

Reed Bunting ..

Another Reed Bunting ..

Four Reed Buntings Feeding..

Reed Bunting Closer In

Scaup

Goldeneye Preening

THE SCAUP & THE GOLDENEYE

I visited a new site while I was down here.

We had many days of snowing and freezing temperatures which was days on end of misery which ended up a day of getting some very sad and distressing news. It was pretty bad and still is .. something else for my corruption blog in time I guess?

I was about fit to burst .. or throw myself under a bus and had to get out. My brother said he wanted to go to a place where a Little Bunting had been spotted. He had also said there were reports of Scaup and Goldeneye ducks and at first I decided I was not going. But then I changed my mind ..

I did decide to only take my Nikon P900 .. but I am going back today with the Sony A99 II and a couple lenses and a monopod!

This is why ..

There was indeed a Scaup ..

You can see a higher resolution picture and others on my Flickr account..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/89426160@N05/40598581772/in/dateposted-public/

Oh and there was a Goldeneye .. or two ..

See Higher res pictures and leave a like at ..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/89426160@N05/26768978378/in/dateposted-public/

There were also Linnets .. though when they flew away we could have sworn we see a greenish yellow colour and thought they were Siskins .. until we got back and took one look at the pictures ..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/89426160@N05/39744792245/in/dateposted-public/

I thought the day was already a result when the first things I saw and filmed, ooh fils to all the above .. below, a Goldcrest ..

Here are a few videos ..

SCAUP

GOLDENEYE

LINNETS

Goldcrest ..

Goldfinch feeding on floor ..

Chaffinch .. maybe?

THE KING AND THE CRESTS

Well I have not published much but .. I have been out several times ..

I have been visiting a spot between Walthamstow and Hackney in East London where it technically borders a part of North London really considered to be East London .. lol.

Now I was told of three species of bird were seen here and these are Goldcrests, Kingfishers and Firecrests? I will tell you what I said to that .. "No fucking way!"

You see I frequented this areas as a kid and collected Common Newts and Palmate Newts from this site and .. no one was supposed to be in there. There used to be a hole in a wallk we used to get through.

I was a keen bird watcher when I was a kid and .. the very idea of even seeing something like Goldcrests there and anywhere else in this area was ludicrous and never happened. Ever!

But blow me down all three are indeed there as I now have photographic evidence of it .. despite killing my back with my very heavy photographic equipment. My Sony A99II is not particularly heavy but the Sony f2.8 70-200mm lens has crushed my vertebrae several times! Lol.

Photos not great but at least I know that these birds are there and now I can work on getting far better photos!!

Now let me see if I can link my photos in from FlickR .. umm .. NOPE ..

Just like Google and their Adsense crap, their Chrome Browser and now Google's Blogger .. nothing bloody works! LMAO! But they are alooof and refuse to talk to you because they think all their crap works!!

Oh well .. here are some pictures and links .. there are a lot more photos and will be more coming ..

Oh and there is video too ..

You can like this Kingfisher photo here .. https://flic.kr/p/23mf22L

You can like this Firecrest photo here .. https://flic.kr/p/234M32n

You can like thias Firecrest photo here .. https://flic.kr/p/234M5X2

You can like this Kingfisher photo here ..https://flic.kr/p/21FdMsw

You can like this Goldcrest photo here .. https://flic.kr/p/24r5YQt

You can like this Goldcrest photo here .. https://flic.kr/p/24r63aV

You can like this Goldrest photo here .. https://flic.kr/p/24r5YQt

Long way away butin the distance you will note a blob of orange .. a Kingfisher and it did land right underneath our noses just out of sight a few minutes later .. the good but washed out photo above .. which I got purely because I see the reeds bend a certain way .. stood up and there it was .. got a photo but it raced off before I could hit the video button on my DSLT.

If you freeze the last video at 4 seconds exactly you should see a Firecrest and it should be unmistakable as to what it is.

BACK TO THE GRAIN

Well I am sort of back .. but not in the way that you might think.

I am going to be getting around doing some stuff over the coming days and weeks and with a little luck might actually be doing that which I planned to begin with many months ago?

I had something of a .. hiccup and did not acquire all the tools I needed due to an emergency situation that is about to unfold, or I hope so, in a big way.

However I am back near some old, but new for here, places that I certainly did not expect and .. momentarily.

I am going to be looking for Firecrests .. in fact I already did and spotted one but not managed to get one on film .. but I did get some Teal and Gadwalls .. oh and a Pochard .. and a Little Grebe. Oh and a pair of Stock Doves.