Foulridge Reservoir

Took a walk down to my local patch at Foulridge yesterday 7/8/17.  The weather was a bit grey and there was the odd shower but we are used to those in Lancashire.  There were not vey many birds around the area but its always a nice walk.  As usual there were a lot of dog walkers about so any shy birds were highly unlikely to be easy to spot.  That said there is always something to catch the interest.

As with virtually all waterways around here there were a large contingent of Mallards

I think I counted about 30 in all across the lake.  Most of the Males have now lost their luxurious green heads and are looking a little drab at the moment but the females are still very pretty.  There were two Canada Geese way out in the middle of the lake so did not get particularly good photos of these;

 As always there were a good number of Great Crested Grebe around and a couple of young ones.  The juveniles were swimming together but a good distance from any adults so I guess they are being left to their own devices.

As I walked around the other side of the lake I found a small flock of 6 Coot feeding among the weeds;

 And among some more Mallards was a single female Mandarin Duck.  These guys are fairly rare around these parts but I generally see one (not sure if it is the same one) on most walks around the lake.  There was no sign of a male but I did see a pair in the spring and a couple of years back there was a female with 4 juveniles, I think I posted that here earlier.

In addition to these there was a Gull (Herring I think) with a couple of begging juveniles

 

Overhead there were a good number of Swallows and around the side of the lake were a number of Blackbirds, Wren, Magpie, Wood Pigeon, some Carrion Crow and Robins but I did not manage to get useful photos of these.

I moved up the road to the wood at Alkincoats and took a short walk around there.  There were a good few Blue and Great Tits at all of the feeders and a couple of Dunnock.  However, these had to grab what they could between visits from a couple of these guys;

They were very adept at taking food from the feeders, even those designed to prevent them from doing so :)

As I had the chance to get some photos of a couple of butterflies too I thought I would share them;

 This is a Speckled Wood (Parage aegeria).

and this one is a Green Veined White (Artogeia napi), Although I am open to correction on these :).

A very nice couple of hours out and about.

© Bernard Bracken