I headed to RSPB Ham Wall over the August Bank Holiday weekend with a friend who wanted to try out a couple of cameras he had hired. I also had with me my new Sigma 150mm Macro 2.8, I had put it on my old Nikon D300 seeing I probably wouldn’t need to crop into the images much. Although we had gone to go bird watching we were also trying out new kit 🙂
We headed down to Tor hide; from previous visits we know it is a good place to spot bitterns! There was a fair amount of activity, a marsh harrier, gadwall, great white egret, cormorant, swallow, little brown thing that flew between the reeds that I just saw out of the corner of my eye (I have no idea at all what it was!), black headed gull, moorhen, the Red Arrows flew over!, little grebe, and of course a bittern. It took a very short flight over the reed beds, I was lucky to get a photo as by the time you had seen it, it was gone!
After a few hours I walked back to the car park to use the facilities! On the way I saw a mute swan and 4 cygnets and a little creature ran across the path. I’m not sure who was most surprised, me or him, we both stopped, looked at each other briefly and he shot into the grass. I think it was a vole but it was such a brief encounter I can’t be certain. That will teach me for not taking my camera!
On the walk to the Avalon Hide I saw another vole! This one didn’t stop to look, he just shot across the path! The hide wasn’t too busy when we got there but people were very spread out, it became obvious after a while that people who were there together were taking up a window each rather than sitting together to allow others to sit down. Now I do see the value of a window each because it allows you more room, however, I have always moved to sit with a companion if others come in to sit down, I just see it as polite. We had to squeeze in a gap in between a window and someone’s scope because they were taking up two windows, they were sat a good few feet away from the windows and at an angle, it was a little odd, they didn’t even acknowledge we were there! After a while of feeling rather uncomfortable we were able to move to a window that became available.
There wasn’t a huge number of birds about but enough to keep us occupied: little egret, great white egret, mute swan, coot, house martin, cormorant, 4 marsh harriers at once and a sparrowhawk! The lady sat next to me noticed it at the same time and we were debating on what it was at the time. I think it took us both by surprise sat in the water by the reeds.
With regards to my new lens, after a bit of testing I think it would work better on my D3s, the D300 just doesn’t seem to work properly with it, it didn’t seem to want to focus, it just wasn’t right. I normally have a wide angle on the D3s so looks like I might have to do some switching of lenses while out in the field when necessary! Not something I like to do if I can help it, I rather dislike cleaning camera sensors!
October 27th – I had a day off work so headed up to my patch. It was a lovely autumn day. No sooner as I walked into the field did I spot a single roe deer over by the copse. A rather good start 🙂 I walked along the top edge of the field being careful as you can’t see the rabbit holes because of all the stinging nettles! There is definitely a track through the hedgerow and into the field that’s being used by larger animals. I will at some point need to get the trail camera into the field to find out what is about after dark. Along the top hedgerow there were lots of small birds but most were too quick and nervous to hang around for me to see what they were. I did manage to identify a dunnock that sat for long enough to get the binoculars on it! There is also quite a lot of litter about, mainly from farming I would guess, like twine and black bags. 
Walking down the side of the field next to the copse there is occasional fruit still on the brambles, but most is now gone. I was surprised to see dragonflies darting around and also a red admiral. Just round the bend in the field is a nest of leaves in the tree, it looks like a dray, a little further on I heard a rustling, when I pin pointed it, I found a grey squirrel in the trees of the copse watching me just as intently as I watched it! There was more rustling in the copse, I knew it would be roe deer by the noise, I could see two through the hedgerow. Four woodpigeon were spooked and flew out of the copse. I’m not sure why or what they were doing but there was a collection of flies on a tree trunk. 
Down by the river the birds are very nervous, they really don’t see a lot of people. I thought or hoped I saw a bank vole, nope when I finally managed to keep it in sight it was a wren! I was surprised to see a little egret and two cormorants though! There was also rubbish in the river, not something I can do anything about as it is unreachable, in fact I couldn’t actually see where the edge of the bank is, it is so over grown. It does make me slightly nervous, it doesn’t help that I’m short and have to move close to the edge to be able to see in parts of the river! I heard a lot of noise and turned to see a red kite being mobbed by some carrion crows/rooks, it did drop something but I didn’t have the camera on them at that time to see what it was. I was very pleased to see a bullfinch in the trees, I haven’t seen one here before. 
Walking back up the field I saw a wren and came face to face with a roe deer. I had been walking in deer tracks, I guess I was on his path! We both just stopped and looked at each other. I wasn’t going to move, I thought I’d let him do what he wanted to. Of course I HAD to take a photo, but moved very slowly when I did. He decided that his best route away from the strange creature that was in his path was straight across the field. He moved a bit and stopped to check I wasn’t following and then ran off at full speed. I do worry that if he had come face to face with one of the deer cullers that he would have been a very easy target 🙁 At least he’s 100% safe in this field. In the distance I could see something on the floor – it was the squirrel 🙂
I spent a little time watching the garden birds: coal tit, blue tit, starling, chaffinch, great tit, goldfinch, dunnock, house sparrow, wren, magpie, long-tailed tit, robin and great spotted woodpecker. I haven’t seen the collard dove with the broken beak since July. Hopefully it is still doing well. I have however been told that a sparrowhawk has been seen in the garden on occasion during the day. I’m yet to see him. 
