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Foulshaw Moss

30/12/2019

Long-tailed tit, Foulshaw Mo

'Isn't it rather a cheat to bring birds close by setting out feeders crammed with peanuts and seed?'
Perhaps, but it gives the perfect opportunity to study birds whilst they're feeding and settled. Then you can wander the Foulshaw Moss reserve and find them for yourself. And should you chance upon them elsewhere in Cumbria you'll know what you're hearing and seeing. And viewing birds from the Foulshaw hide, you are close enough to take photographs without disturbing them.

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Lune Estuary and Lancashire Coastal Way

29/12/2019

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Lune Estuary sunset 29 December 2019

Good light and a mackerel sky on a mild late-December day. Whooper swans –the trumpeters, grazing in pastures. They arrive from Iceland in November, returning in March. Chevron of geese calling overhead. From the coastal path we hear the plaintive call of redshank and whistling widgeon. And the bubbling call of curlew I had thought to hear only in spring display flight.

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Redwing at Christmas

27/12/2019

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Christmas Day redwing

All through autumn and into winter I've been on a quest, following redwing and fieldfare. Hearing their contact calls as flocks flew overhead to settle in the tops of high trees, distant trees. Sometimes, the experience is all- forget the photographs they're not going to happen. On Christmas Day a lone redwing sat sunlit in our garden birch. He returned on Boxing Day but it was cloudy and dull.
A supercilium defines the bird, a pale eyebrow. Thrush-like chevrons on the breast and where breast meets under-wing a rusty red which gives the bird its name. Zoom in further and colour shows but focus is lost. For now, my best redwing image.

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Snow on Scout Scar

15/12/2019

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The Langdale Pikes with the dark gash of Dungeon Ghyll, left of centre

Fresh snow on the Langdale Pikes. The dark cleft of Dungeon Ghyll is visible, some twelve miles as the raven flies.
Snow not only on the panorama of fells but on Scout Scar. The face of stone walls patterned with snow, trees outlined in snow. But already the drip, drip, drip of a rapid thaw tells that it won't last.

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December in darkness and in storm

10/12/2019

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Redpoll on Foulshaw Moss feeder

April 2019 and trees sheltering the feeders were alive with birdsong. You may hear redpoll in woodland fringes but they're restless, so hard to see. In a glade at Foulshaw Moss Cumbria Wildlife invites you to a close encounter - look and listen. Birds gather in the trees and come down to the feeders: reed bunting, tree sparrows, goldfinch- and the sudden flash of a sparrowhawk. All that feed is expensive so posters ask for our support. I delighted in the Foulshaw readpoll last spring and one of my images features..

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Foulshaw Moss

Lune Estuary and Lancashire Coastal Way

Redwing at Christmas

Snow on Scout Scar

December in darkness and in storm

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