Lochore Meadows CP

 Well it's been a long while since I have posted, but we managed at least to get out for a couple of hours to Lochore Meadows Country Park, which is just a 10 minute walk from our lovely new house in Kelty.

We have broken the back of the packing and got the house ready for Christmas, although very different to any other year, in these sad and strange times.

This was very much a quick explore, to find the bird hider and get our bearings. It is a beautiful place and cant wait for the spring to see what we can find.

Plus a few birds: A Little Grebe,

Male Goldeneye,

Female Goldeneye,

and loads of Teal.

A Male Goosander was on the pool, the other side of the reeds, so didn't lend itself to a decent  photo, a Sparrowhawk swooped through, much to the Teals annoyance. A couple of Wigeon were seen, as were a couple of Gadwall and Pochard.

22 Species in all for a short walk, so a good start to our new local patch.

A bit busy!

 There haven't been any posts for a while, we haven't had that much time for birding and even less time to sort out photos and do any reports. Normal service will be resumed, when we have completed our move to Scotland.

Til then!

Musselburgh, East Lothian

 Final catch up posting, we had to go to Scotland at the beginning of October for a week and in the middle of a hectic few days we managed a lie in an afternoon out and took ourselves off for a bit of relaxation at Musselburgh Lagoons. We spent a good couple of hours there in the concrete roofless hides, thankfully it stayed dry, before driving along the Forth to Longniddry.

The Lagoons were really busy, with;

Plenty of Redshank,

Oystercatchers and Greylag Geese,

Bar-tailed Godwit,

a Couple of Whooper Swans,

Knot,

Barnacle Geese,

and Dunlin.

Just realised a never took a photo of my favourite waders, the Curlew!

In addition there were a couple of Ruff about, as well as Wigeon and Teal. The boating pond produced Mute Swan, Mallard and Gadwall. We had some great socially distanced chats with some of the local birders all very friendly. It was a great couple of hours. Can't wait to go back, but now we are in Tier Two, and the Central Belt in Scotland is under tough restrictions, it won't be happening for a while. 😒

Longniddry was very quiet, some Turnstone, a couple of Rock Pipit, fly bys by Cormorants and some distant Eider and Goosander to round off the day. We had planned to carry on to Aberlady but ran out of time and tide.

Winsford, Cheshire

 A family visit took us up to Cheshire in September and the River Weaver again not many birds about but there were a few other things around.

Buzzard going over,

Red Admiral,

The River Weaver,

Common Hawker (I think!)

Always wanted to get a Dragonfly in flight and finally managed it!

Juvenile Goldfinch,

Speckled Wood,

Common Darter, again I think it is, no expert on Dragonflies,

and a distant Heron.

Lovely Day!

Kinver Canal

 We have been very busy with one thing and another the last few weeks so haven't had time to post anything, so I am starting a bit of a catch up. Back in mid September, we popped over to Kinver and one of our favourite walks. It takes you between the canal and the River Stour. From a birding point of view it was very quiet, the highlight being the Grey Wagtails:

Otherwise not much to add just some bits and bobs:

The full bird list:

Back at Ladywalk NR

 Paid our third visit to Ladywalk this week, very quiet, although we did see some Egyptian Geese, haven't seen any of those since February in Norfolk, those lovely days before Covid.

See here are a few photos:

The aforementioned Egyptian Geese, seen from hide A,

Gadwall,

Goosander on the river,

As usual plenty of Herons.

Two of the three Little Egrets seen,

Yes it's a hide, in fact it's hide B!

Shoveler,

yet another Heron,

a Muntjac,

a Great Crested Grebe with youngster.

The sun came out so this Cormorant took the opportunity to dry those wings, bad design!

And finally one of the four Green Sandpipers seen foraging in the shallows.

As usual a lovely walk, our favourite at the moment, might spice it up next time and go clockwise 😄