A walk in the park

A dramatic sky over the Italian Garden, at the centre of the park. Things appear to lean back because I used an ultrawide lens (14mm) angled upwards.

Actually, two walks. The same park - my local park, the one I spent time in growing up (though not that much, I was never an outdoors child), Stanley Park. A good size, a good mix of habitats, and very accessible. For the last couple of years, most of my trips have been on the way somewhere else - usually Marton Mere, a natural lake and wetland nature reserve on the outskirts of town - but the park itself is a nice spot if I don't feel like going so far.

I was away in London for a week, my park trips either side. During my absence, one of the strongest storms of recent years swept through, and there was a lot of damage. Not so many trees fell as I might have expected (wind speeds approaching 100mph/160kph here), but lots of branches torn down. Rather sad, though I appreciate it's part of the woodland ecology - assuming the cash-strapped rangers are able to deal with it sensibly.

The first trip was in late afternoon/early evening on a weekday, with lovely low, golden sunlight from the west and few people about. I was a little waylaid by an elderly gentleman who insisted on having a long conversation with me (strangers see my camera/lens and often start chatting), but it was still a pleasant walk despite this meaning I didn't have time to go as far as I'd planned. The most notable birds were a flock of 8 or so pied wagtails, feeding alongside the lake. I've never seen this many together there before - though they sometimes feed in numbers on the bowling greens.

An immature/juvenile wagtail - greyer, with a lemon-tinged face.

An adult. Water + low sun = attractive reflections.

Some sort of domestic goose?

Another domestic goose?

A lot of cormorants. But how can this be comfortable?

 Snowdrops had started coming out.

 

So busy singing, this robin wasn't bothered by me snapping away nearby. ISO 6400 was required to get unblurred shots - it was nearly dusk, and dark under the trees.

Some attractive geese on the lake, albeit the usual residents. And a roost of 35-40 cormorants, along with a heron or two.

The second walk was on a Sunday afternoon. I went primarily because an adult, summer plumage Mediterranean gull had been seen by the lake that morning. Not only have I never seen this species - despite looking many times, and their being seen locally on a regular basis - but the summer plumage adults are particularly fine. Sadly, although there were a lot of gulls on the lake - a couple of hundred maybe - they were all the usual suspects. I checked every one, but most were black-headed, with some common, and the odd herring and lesser black backed.

An adult lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus) - there's a tiny glimpse of a yellow leg in the shot, not visible in this scaled down version.

 

An adult winter common gull (Larus canus), not all that common here and probably my favourite.

 

An adult female black-headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) - this ringed individual spends the summer in Denmark (thanks to David McGrath for the info).

A first winter black-headed gull. Note the orange, rather than red, legs and beak. I'm still getting to grips with all the variations - gulls are tricky!

Elsewhere there was more activity, despite the large number of adults, children, and dogs. I followed a treecreeper for a few minutes, but got no nice shots - they are resident in the park, but very hard to photograph, ceaselessly and rapidly moving across the bark, so well camouflaged, and generally staying high up in the trees. In fact, a lot of people had bird seed and peanuts, so lots of species - semi-tame as they are there - came very close indeed. Most people seemed more interested in the grey squirrels, but I enjoyed a great tit that hovered in midair for a few seconds each time a peanut was thrown, although it didn't dare land. Bluetits, long-tailed tits, blackbirds, woodpigeon, crows - what you'd expect. But the nuthatches, that I had wanted to see on my earlier visit, were showing well. I always forget to take food, but someone had left some, and three or four individuals returned to the stump circle (where you usually see them), and seemed totally oblivious to me, a few metres away. But they were too fast for much in the way of good shots either.

Cormorants sit on the same fencing in the lake as the gulls. When the light is right - which it was not in this case - you can get good closeup shots.

 This really was the best I could do with the treecreeper on this occasion (shooting almost straight up at a bluetit-sized bird thirty or forty feet above). I ought to spend a couple of hours just on this, given how low the hitrate is.

 

At least the nuthatches let you get close. They're pretty fast though, so again it requires patience. I'll take food next time.

A frustrating day, to say the least. I'll keep an eye out for reports of that gull in the next week though.