Lakeside and Fells

This last week or so I have revisited my local nature reserve to see how the grebes are progressing and I have also made a trip into Bowland to see if any summer visitors have arrived.The grebes were still sitting on eggs and there was not a lot of activity during my stay.The little grebe gave one or two opportunities for the camera and it was nice to see a waterhen had been successful in rearing four young chicks.I have shown above some of the images from my visit.

I had not visited the Bowland Fells for some time and I was anxious to see what summer visitors were around.It was generally very quiet as I drove the back roads and lanes of Bowland.It was still quite cool and as yet there may not be much food available for the birds. However as I drove along I spotted a very nice male stonechat perched at the roadside on a dead stem of bracken. I hurriedly took some images from the car and then stopped to investigate .There was a pair of stonechats and they did seem to be on territory.The images I obtained were a bit grainy and I will return to the location later for hopefully some better images.On my way back I met up with Martin at Tower Lodge and we watched the pied flycatchers which also are nesting in the boxes provided in the adjacent woodland.I have shown an image of the female pied fly above.There did nor appear to be the usual numbers of lapwings,curlews and redshanks around but a very obliging curlew and lapwing did give me some nice images.Images of stonechat,pied flycatcher,lapwing and curlew are shown above.I will be back in Bowland soon when things warm up a bit.Thanks for looking in and enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend.