BIRD NEWS:567

Next, a moorhen swam into view of my camera. The water was making gentle ripples quite an effective background for my pictures.

Along comes another coot. In fact, coot and moorhen were the 2 most populous bird on the canal that day. This male mallard had an almost green beak, rather than yellow as most males do at this time of year. Maybe it's a youngster, sick, or mis-bred - otherwise a late starter to change into spring plumage, perhaps.

There was a coot peeping out at me as I turned to walk back into Chichester city. This one seemed to have started builiding its nest - an early bird!

As I came back into town, a pigeon looked down at me from a treetop - while a row of seagulls clattered about nearby housing. The cormorants had moved towards town and were on a wooden buoy in the basin when I got back.

BIRD NEWS:566

My next excursion was a solo run to Chichester & Bognor and one of the first things I did - in case it rained later on - was grab a coffee and head for the canal. I had not walked more than a few hundred meters before my camera came out to grab shot of the cormorants.

There was one on the jetty and another further along in the canal-side vegetation. Both were busy searching for food - though the first spotted me and glanced my way as well as into the water. The second was too busy preening and fishing.

This piece of artwork has iron birds depicted in the wingos of a butterfly. I also managed to capture a coot in the water beyond. This coot and pair of mallards must have thought I had food - as they came over to see me - sorry guys, I had a camera and that's not edible!

An entourage of coots had the same idea not much further along. She has food for US, they thought - alas, little pink clickable boxes are not lunch, you guys! That's right mate - food's thattaways...

Finaly for today, HERE is a video of the birds in the next stretch - mostly of the coots.

BIRD NEWS:565

I managed to get the bird in shot - but not for very good photograhps. You can see that it is distinguishable by a bright stripe...

At least I got better shots than brown smudges in brambles, like on my last attempt. I was dissappointed not to get the crest color in shot though.

Next up, the Bewick duo - Miss Silvertag and Master Orangetag.

Once again, they were not in their own enclosure - but in the lake with the red breasted and  Emporer geese.

We then popped into the diving duck netted area and spotted two geese, one of which staggered about as if poorly or drunk, we noted. The ducks were mostly sunbathing on the island rocks. We saw he scoter, harlequin ducks and long tailed ducks here.

My final picture for today is of a trio of emporer geese swimming in their sunlit lake.

BIRD NEWS:564

The black necked swans were hanging out with the black backed radjah shelduck on a clump of land today - with the magpie geese not far away. This Nene decided to look at us - in case we had food with us, I expect.

Liz and I walked along the boardwalk and spotted a large broken egg sheell. It might be a goose or swan egg we thought - but do not know enough about egg identification to say for sure -only that it was large...

Nexr, we cam e across the trumpeter swans - who came out of hiding as we walked closer, as we could not see them as we first spotted their lake.

Liz and I notied that they head-bopped and called to one another, and seemd to be getting aong well - as the Bewick duo have been. As the swans at WWT Arundel are all fairly recent replacements for former stock that died, it may be another year or two before any nesting and parenting come into play though.

We came out from the sand martin hide and spotted some photographers hanging about the wildlife garden. Assuming it was the firecrest they were after I took  a look - shot a few shots of the flitty bird....hoping for some good pictures this time. Well....

BIRD NEWS:563

I entered Worthing seafront and spotted more than one pigeon eying me! Maybe this last one was one of the old beach gang I used to hang with a few years ago - otherwise it knew I loved pigeons or estimated my almost empty bag housed something edible.

Back home and the bluetits were queing up for brekkie. Along with the great tits, coal tit and jay - those peanuts do not last long with these fellows around.

My next excursion was taken early in March. Liz and I trotted around the WWT at Arundel on a mostly sunny but also cloudy morning. The first birds worthy of photography that we came across were a flock of pigeons - near the feeding station.

I took several photos of the show pigeons mingled with city pigeon flock. I had seen a large group of city pigeons when visitng a friend in Worthing hospital at the weekend - but had not taken my camera with me to catch a shot of them then. Luckily I had my camera in bag on this trip though - because I never know where we will head til I arrive on Liz's doorstep on a Monday - always a surprise with coffee.

BIRD NEWS:562

3 gulls begin todays post, assumedly a family as one was a youngster. Next, a redshank encountered a blackhaeded gull.

Reflecting back to when I went through Worthing, prior to arrival at Shoreham, I wondered if I might see another pied wagtail. I had a short wait at Worthing before the bus moved on and spotted one on the sidewalk - alas, despite their being some at Widewater Lagoon, I didn't spot any on my current trip - so that bird eluded my camera.

I left the lagoon, sighting little else of interest and progressed along the coast towards Worthing. I spotted a few crows as I got nearer to Lancing. I left Lancing for Worthing, and passing Brooklands tried to take a shot of the birds on the lake...

...alas cars kept getting in the way. I waited for ages it seems. They used to have coot, moorhen, swan, duck, gull....Today it looked mostly like gulls, though.

Back to the beach crows for my next shot...

My last shot for the day was taken in East Wothing as I approchaed town center along the coast. I managed to capture a seagull and a crow both astride human creations, the other side of the highway to the beach.

BIRD NEWS:561

I will start today's post with some more pictres of the redshank I spotted as I entered Widewater Lagoon on my way towards Worthing from Shoreham.

I took rather a lot of photographs actually - just in case I couldn't identify it on the infoboard. I then spoted a herring gull hanging with blackheaded gulls on the next island along so took a shot of them.

I then spotted a trio of mute swans across the farside of the lagoon. I looked back at the gulls...

i was thankful that the weather had stayed reasonable. After sometime of 'wet n windy', we had had a couple of dry days and a light overnight shower. The day gave me clouds clearing and I took the opportunity to get out while I could, knowing full well that the weather forcast was for extreme gales and heavy rain for 36 hours, starting that evening/night. As I walked along further, I spotted a couple of blobs over the far side of the lagoon - assumedly mallards iItook their picture. On computerising the picture it does indeed appear to be a pair of mallards.