Spring Couples - Oyster Catchers, Shelducks and Avocets

As the weather has been so great recently I went for a long walk along our local river, the Douglas to practice my photography skills and to see if i could manage to get a half decent image of birds in flight with my current equipment.

With the dry weather and the sun the banks of the River Douglas had dried considerably leaving shallow pools for wading birds to sift through for food, the usual suspects were in abundance; Oyster Catcher, Curlew, Shelduck, Mallard but it’s the first time I’ve seen Avocet on my local patch although they do breed at RSB Marshside, Southport which is about 10 miles up the coast.

As for catching birds in flight? These are the best of a LOT of photographs.

Lapwing on flight -probably pushing the lens a little here

Shelducks in flight - sometimes luck is all you need...

I’m pleased with the one of the Shelducks which just flew right past me while I had the camera set up ready to go, although the sky could have been a bit more interesting – can’t have it all I guess. The Lapwing was a bit tougher, they fly very erratically at this time of year and realistically the lens I have (Canon 55-250) isn’t up to the job – hence they’re a bit blurred, although still recognisable.

Still… practice makes perfect.

All sorts of ducks on the River Douglas

After some fairly dismal weather these past couple of months I finally managed to get out for a walk along our local river, the Douglas, and as I’m a bit (understatement of the century) rusty I took out my camera just to check it (and me) is working as it should.

There wasn’t really much to see exfcept a lot of ducks including some Widgeon (which make the amazing whistling noise), Teal, Shelducks and the usual suspects of Mallard and Oyster catchers. I tried to get some pictures of them in flight but a small Duck is very very fast so I gave up.

Spring was certainly in the air today though as i saw a few lambs on my way down to the river, thankfully the boys below didn’t have any as it’s best to stay out of the way of sheep at lambing time so as not to distress the ewes and their newly birthed lambs.

"The Managment" of the banks bleats "non shall pass"

They do look a bit like the mafia though and it felt like I was trespassing on their field…

Hopefully, now the weather seems to be changing for the better I’ll get out fishing, it was almost this time last year that we fished this very river and caught a few Flounder – there were a few people fishing today but nobody had caught anything. It seems the seasons are a bit late this year, but i seem to recall someone saying that a cold winter heralds a hot summer – so here’s hoping…