Walking by the Water

Yesterday we went for a walk at Tittesworth Reservoir near Leek.  We decided to walk out to the hides across the road and then on to Merebrook to see the snowdrops in the churchyard.

The usual shots from the hides are with big lenses of things lurking at the other side of the water.  This is an egret in the reeds, waiting for its next meal to come along.

At the side of the small hide was a bird feeding station, with the usual garden bird visitors like robin, blue tit, great tit, sparrow and dunnock.  There were an unusually large number of robins around.

The first joy of this feeder was to see a willow tit.  This bird is one that I seldom see.

It was followed by a black headed gull in its winter plumeage - Not so much feeding as posing.

A more interesting visitor was a reed bunting.  We used to see lots of these when we lived in the Linconshire Fens.

There are lapwings (Great Creasted Plover) on the island, but my 300mm lens with a 1.7x adapter was not able to deliver enough sharp focus to do them justice.  The adapter soften the focus too much.