Our next excursion was to the south of england show - where one of the first things we viewed was the poultry tent - aka pigeons!
I took a lot of pictures, as I knew it was mostly horses, sheep, cows, pigs and stalls....not many other birds.
Lots of pigeons....
...all in one place.
Pigeons,
pigeons, pigeons....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! 💓
Preening, standing, neck-puffing ....
...pigeons! 💕
Next in WWT Arundel, a troop of Canada Geese...
We then went to Swanbourne lake, so I naturally photogrpahed pigeons.
A few seagulls decided to jump into shot, but mostly pigeons.
Someone had dumped a pile of seed near a bench - so we enjoyed watching them - until a couple of uncontrolled kids and a rude mother appeared and the kids were 'encouraged' to disturb and chase away the pigeons.
They didn't care that someone had kindly put seed down for them - nor that we were enjoying watching them eat it and photographing them.... It was just 'pigeons to be chased' to that family of uncaring townies.
As we walked home, we passed Goggles in his pond - with a mallard for company.
Goggles proudly stood by the painting of himself. I wonder why noone has ever brought a companion for him, and he is forced to hang with only mallards?
This is the last photo of the male sawn goose for this trip.
Next up, black necked grebes.
Then we made our way to the trumpeter duo - still no nest.
There was also a farm duck in with them, along with a few other birds.
Mostly mallards....
We eventually left the trumpeters and moved on....
...to the Bewick duo - no nest.
As we approached the pelican duo, we spotted a pair of Canada geese parents and a troop of younsgters.
It was as if they were saying 'What is wrong with them? We have 8.... Why haven't those great big white birds got young? '
Another kingfisher shot.
Next up, we went in the coastal creek aviary - and saw a redshank along with spectacled eider, avocet, scoter...
Then we came across another regular inhabitant as we strolled onward.
A swan goose, according to the info board.
Yes, a male swan goose.
My first two shots today are of a baby sparrow and a baby bluetit on my backyard feeder, along with at least one parent.
I finally managed to capture a shot of the baby bluetit on the tree, awaiting it's next meal.
Our next excurdsion was to Arundel. After walking through the woodland to arrive, we crossed the bridge on our way to WWT. Looking down we saw multiple youth. There was a trail of swans, and 2-3 families of ducks.
The ducks were Mallard and Carolina.
We sat down in the cafe, and spotted a kingfisher.
It was difficult to spot on camera, but I took several shots.
I was determind to capture it on camera. It moved to 2-3 positions in front of the nesting wall, but I failed to get a good shot.
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.
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.
