BIRD NEWS: 873

 

As you can see, I was playing round with the settings on my camera, trying to get the manual settings exposure feature to function correctly.

I think you can see the stork standing on the nest rim clearly in some of the pictures, if not all. Alas, I forget which setting the good pictures were taken on!

Just in case, I circled it in the one above.

I took one shot on each setting....

Next, we went to Shoreham. There were weeds and pigeons in the church walls.

There was a crow on the railway bridge.

There were swans on the river. Poissibly the 5 swan family we saw last trip.

BIRD NEWS: 872

 

Our next trip took us to Nyman's & environs. We spotted a field of sheep and lambs - and crows! There was a real city pigeon as well as the wooden white dove in the dove cote.

There was a very loud blackbird singing brightly away at us in a tree as we passed by.

It did not seem to care that we were only 1-2 meters distant, so must have been used to people passing regularly.

We have a couple in our garden at home. One sings out the back near my window in the early mornings and sometimes takes suet pellets from the sill, whilst the other inhabits the front yard.

We then encountered a pair of buzzards flying above us.

That brings us to the end of that excursion - as it was mostly woodland and flowers, not birds.

Our next trip was to Knepp Park rewilding reserve. We took the longest - 10 km - walk and my pictures of the bird of prey we spotted failed, but I took some of the stork in the nest that suceded.

You can see to the right of the pictures, 2 large nests - the top one of which has an adult standing guard.

BIRD NEWS: 871

 

We left Borde Hills Gardens and proceeded to Leonardslee. I spotted a Canada Goose with young on a mini island.

I think we counted 6 chicks.

That was the end of that excursion. It has been a while since I shared Naboo videos - so here are 4 more for you to enjoy to end today's post.

naboo 14

naboo 17

nabbo 20

nabbo 22

BIRD NEWS: 870

 

Here is another of the twig bird sculptures at Wakehurst Place.

My next picture is from the next Saturday's excursion - where we began our rambles at Borde Hill Gardens, before a brief trot round Leonardslee.

We found a giant bird sculpture on the lawns soon after entering. It was not long before we found more sculpted birdlife - a pair of pelicans on the Italian gardens' pond.

I took different shots from different angles.

Well, 3....

I then discovered stone ducks hiding by a doorway.

We stopped for our picnic lunch, overlooking a field - in which we spotted a pheasant meandering.

BIRD NEWS: 869

 

The nuthatch is back....and the pheasant is losing a tail feather.

As we wandered around, we spotted a nesting Canada Goose. Meanwhile, as we roamed the woodland, we spotted a twig-bird in the trees.

It was an owl, made entirely of sticks.

Further around the woodland walk, we found a nest with eggs.

There was another bird further around - a treecreeper.

I took it from different angles.

There were lots of twig sculptures - some of which I have probably photographed previously - but some were new.

BIRD NEWS: 868

 

A nuthatch feasts in the tray while a male pheasant nibbles on the ground below. Then the pheasant figures out where the good seed is!

Munch munch munch...one greedy pheasant!

Meanwhile, the nuthatch gives up and flies away.

Whilst the greedy male pheasant munches on, still.

Still it eats...but looks towards us as if saying 'keep them away' as a chaffinch watches him and another male pheasant appears on the scene.

There is to be no escape from mr pheasant 2 for mr pheasant 1.

But I will give you a short break from them by sharing a shot of Naboo hiding behind his mirror in 2023.

BIRD NEWS: 867

 

Our next excursion was to Wakehurst Place to enjoy the spring colors. But first, here is a shot of poor Pidge - a bedraggled pigeon with a broken beak. It appears that the lower half has bent to one side and the end chipped off. He was suffering also from gales and heavy downpours...so looked very sorry for himself.

There was a raven on the grass land at Wakehurst.

At the pond, we saw Canada geese, mallard and Egyptian geese.

We also saw pheasant and Greylag... Quite a crowd for one pond.

I finally mastered the M setting as well as A to get zoom shots!!

So I managed to get good up close pictures of them all.

I will finish today with a shot of the Egyptian geese, as I do not usually get close ups of them.

HERE is an article about turtle doves.