BIRD NEWS:525

I did not stay with the trumpeters as long as the Bewicks, as they did not come over close to me like the Bewicks had. They did swim a little closer - but not very close.

I turned about as they did, ready to pass by the Bewicks again on my way to the first talk of the day - and spotted a pretty pigeon. The pigeon also seemed to show interest in the Bewicks...

It is not often I get a picture of two of my favored birds in one photograph - pigeons AND swans! I then tried to take a photo of this pair - who kept ducking as I took the pictures...

I wondered if I would ever get the tops of their heads in view - and kept trying.

BIRD NEWS:524

One last shot of the eider on the cafe-side lake before I moved along. I had a half hour or so before the first talk, so trotted along towards the Bewick swans - passing this little character on my way. As usual, it popped out the hedgerow and sung to me...

I arrived at the Bewick's lake - and took a few pictures, along with THIS VIDEO.

I stayed to hang out with my pals Mr Orangetag Bewick and Miss Silvertag Bewick, before wandering along to the first event I had signed up for.

Here you can see Miss S Bewick coming closer to take a look at me - maybe wondering why I had stayed around for 10-15 minutes rather than taken a quick look and rushed along somepond else.

My next brief stop was with the Trumpeter swans...

BIRD NEWS:523

One more shot of our bird feeders taken late September...I can count 14 sparrows - if you include the blurrs. And again, early October - where you can see our sparrows lining up for their turn of the seed - or giving up and seeking fat ball instead.

My first excursion of October was to WWT Arundel - but before I arrived, I spotted a trio of pigeons enjoying a feast on the riverbank. The first thing I did was to sign up for some walk/talks at

Autumn Discover Birds weekend

 and then settle down by the cafe-side lake with a cuppa to watch the eiders.

I took a half dozen or so pictures while sipping my hot drink, warming myself as the chills of fall were greeting me this time - definitely back to long sleeve season.

As well as my photographs, I took a video - which you can watch HERE.

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You may be mistaken in thinking the pigeons were the subject of my photo - well, they were - but..... so were the pair of teenage Nenes! In my next shot, you can see eider as well as gulls and mallards.

Before leaving the reserve and crawling back to the bus stop, exhausted and hopeful of an afternoon nap rather than shopping trip, I popped back to see the Bewicks.

One of them looked at me, but the other was feeding busily sub-surface. That concludes my September visit to Arundel WWT. Back home, and Pidge was standing in the bird bath.

My next excursion was a quickie with Liz to Pulborough Brooks. We were only there for just over an hour, as we had stopped en route for our refreshments and did not enter the reserve - just make a purchase from the shop and then take a ramble round the woodland outside. Of course, I also stopped to grab a piccie of the show pigeons.

Finally for today - here is a late September shot of the bird feeder showing how our number of sparrows have increased lately.

BIRD NEWS:521

I then stopped at the waterfall exhibit. You can see here the real specimen with its info board - and the one on the left of the picture with the blue tag is a male!

Here are a pair of merganzers! Here are some young merganzers - who were hiding when I tried to photograph them on my last visit.

TWO Blacknecked swans! On my last 3-4 visits, there has been one lonesome swan calling sadly....but now there are two! I was mentioning this to the staff member when he updated me on the swans and a few other birds. This pair are both new, as the other original male was no longer here. So, now we have 2 Bewick, 2 Trumpeter, and 2 blacknecked swans again - all relatively recent arrivals. It will therefore be a few more years before they have young - but....hopefully I will get to know them better by then.

Nearby was a line of dozing ducks.

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One last shot of Silvertag the female Bewick and her mate Orangetag. The staff member taught me that male birds on the reserve can be told by having a metal band on their right leg and female on their left. As Silvertag has a silver-metal tag on her left leg, I therefore class her as female. However, the colored tags are ID numbers and not sex indicators, so I am unaware if Orangetag is male or female - as it only has an orange tag that I can see.

This emperor goose did not wait for its photo to be taken - but disappeared from view behind the diving feeder cage. Ah yes - here is an info board about the sand martins that I spotted flying all over the lake on my riverside stroll earlier. from the sand martin hide, I didn't see any.

Another fact I learned from the staff member I spoke with was that the trumpeter swans were not the original ones I had known from a few years back. This would explain why they stopped being as friendly all of a sudden - they were not the same swans and did not know me!

Here is a wood pigeon staring down at me from a hut. There is another one, staring down from a tree branch. In the woodland hide, I found....a leaf, a mushroom, and a young moorhen!

Back home, and I still have an abundance of sparrows - gobbling thru 2 mugs worth of seed per day, one suet ball per week also seems to disappear to them. The peanuts vanish quite fast also, as we have plenty of blue tits and a few great tits hanging around.

BIRD NEWS:519

My next excursion was a solo trip to Arundel. I was not feeling well as I had a sinus infection, so began with a slow stroll along the River Arun before my 2 hour stint at the WWT. I saw plenty of cow herds - 3-4 groups in fact - but I also saw a mass of swooping birds. The bright chest of the swallow was absent - and due to their proximity to the sand martin hide lake over the hedge, I assume that that was what they were - sand martins.

I then arrived at the WWT. The Bewicks were watching me - well, one was - Silvertag the female. Later on my trip I was talking to one of the staff about the black necked swans, and he happened to give me a very useful bit of information so that I can now identify which birds at the reserve are male and which are female!

Looking across, you can see a variety of waterfowl. I soon turned back to my friends the Bewicks though. Silvertag and her mate Orangetag were now both busy preening - or were they.