Hints of renewed activity on Manor farm. 13th July 2019

Inert appear to have made a small foray on to Manor farm sometime over the past week. The gate to Manor farm near the Bailey bridge was wide open, and there were a few vehicle tracks. Nothing major, hints of one or two vehicles doing one or two small trips.  There were signs that stuff was added to the barrier across the Longwater road entrance. Otherwise, I couldn't see anything obvious from where I was on the footpath.

Our pump was quite silent, resulting in raised water levels in Cormorant lake.

Chandlers farm get even more lumpy as yet more stuff is trucked in. There are quite a few large heaps dotted about the place, with the old boulder sorter outers chugging away on occasion.

On the wildlife front. This year's brood are very much in evidence, especially the various geese. They seem to have had a very successful year. Egyptian geese are beginning to congregate. Swallows and swifts were more in evidence now that the weather has turned favourable. With luck they will manage one if not two broods during July and August.

We begin our slide show with a gallery of two; seeing as Inert have not yet returned to Manor farm.

Now the wildlife slide show. My usual early Wednesday morning stomp first brings me to a five bar gate, near the MGLG car park, which is the north west entrance to Colebrook lake. I always pause at the gate, hoping to get some decent wildlife shots. Normally quite speculative, as the birds tend to be a long way from the gate.

I pointed my lens at some interesting floaty birds who were almost across the lake, getting near to Plover island. They turned out to be Great Crested Grebe, and they seemed to be doing a courtship ritual. I stayed focused on them.  This was a fortunate decision. I noticed they had dived under the water and came up with vegetation in their beaks. I had a strong hint that something spectacular was going to happen. It did, and I photographed them doing this; the first time I have ever witnessed this.

The whole display is over and done with in about 20 to 30 seconds. Hardly surprising considering the effort it takes to tread water like that. Most of the images are heavily cropped, as the birds were about 100m away. They came out quite well considering my lens is at its worst at 600mm. I feel very, very, very lucky to not only have witnessed this display but to have also managed to photograph it; especially as I normally storm around the reserve at speed roughly once a week.

Moving on to more mundane photos. There were a lot of crickets and grasshoppers around. You could hear them, but not really see them. I didn't have time to hunt them out to photograph them. Similarly, dragonfly are in abundance, but difficult to photograph as they move so fast. Butterflies were also more in evidence.