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| Mandarin duck |
It was a dreich day so I decided to toddle over to Etherow Country Park to take photos of the mandarin ducks in the rain. It turned out that the light was so bad it was a struggle to coax up a shutter speed that wouldn't leave the birds in a blur of motion. In the end the mandarin ducks kept still enough long enough for me to get away with a one-thirtieth of a second exposure time. The same couldn't be said about the flock of thirty-odd siskins in the drowned alders by the garden centre or the treecreeper by the path on Keg Wood.
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| Mallard and mandarins |
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| River Etherow |
The river was in full spate, the usual white goose's usual rock was underwater so she had to sit on the riverbank downstream. I had no joy finding any dippers or grey wagtails downstream of the weir. I had more luck just upstream: a couple were bouncing round the tree roots on the riverbank opposite the little pier behind the shack.
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| Keg Wood |
Keg Wood wasn't busy in any sense of the word though it was good so see almost the full range of the usual woodland suspects (only missing goldcrest and chiffchaff). On the way back a sparrowhawk flew by escorted by a carrion crow until it disappeared into Ernocroft Wood.
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| Mandarin duck |
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Mandarin ducks
There was a lot of head-bobbing courtship display going on |
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| Mandarin ducks |
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