{"id":10834,"date":"2024-12-16T16:58:14","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T16:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=10834"},"modified":"2024-12-16T16:58:15","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T16:58:15","slug":"kingfisher-redwing-14-15-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/kingfisher-redwing-14-15-december\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingfisher & Redwing. 14 & 15 December"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On the weekend of 14 & 15 December I got a few nice photos of a female Kingfisher at Crag Hebble Dam and a Redwing in our garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As usual you can tap\/touch\/click on an image, not its caption, to see it in better quality in the gallery. You can also leave comments or subscribe to the site – leave your email address and you will get notified when I publish something new.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Crag Hebble Dam<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday morning I took my camera, long lens and tripod down to Crag Hebble Dam on Loadpit Beck at the bottom of Bracken Hall Crag, AKA Shipley Glen<\/a>. I spent an enjoyable, though chilly, few hours there watching a female Kingfisher. If I hadn’t had my camera with me I wouldn’t have spent that long there, it gives you an excuse to just hang around looking as though you have a purpose wildlife photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kingfisher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Birch polypore<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Silver Birch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Greylag Geese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I managed to get a couple of photos of it diving, and very successful it was to. Most times it came up with a small fish. It would then spend a while tossing it about and whacking it on the branch it was on. I’m pretty sure the fish would be dead by the time it got tossed around to be swallowed head first. I didn’t count the number of fish but I reckon it was 7 or 8 while I was watching. One bit of behaviour that did surprise me was its ability to hover. Several times it flew out from its perch and hovered over the water for a second or two before diving for a fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a fallen\/felled Silver Birch at the dam that has fallen through the iron fence that has some nice examples of Birch polypore growing on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judging by the fissures in some of the Silver Birch trees they are “old”. I don’t know what that means in terms of years because according to the book, Silver Birch tend to be short lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before heading home I called in at the Bracken Hall Countryside Centre and spotted quite a few Greylag Geese a couple of fields over from their back wall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Redwing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday morning I did a bit more bird-watching, but this time I stayed warm in the house and watched them in the garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Redwing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Blackbird<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Often when I have seen Redwing they have been eating berries in trees or eating those that have fallen to the ground. This Redwing was on the ground chucking leaves about and eating the insects and worms it uncovered. This is the same behaviour I see often in Blackbirds and Dunnocks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the weekend of 14 & 15 December I got a few nice photos of a female Kingfisher at Crag Hebble Dam and a Redwing in our garden. As usual you can tap\/touch\/click on an image, not its caption, to see it in better quality in the gallery. You can also leave comments or subscribe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paul","category-shipley-glen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/R7_C0424.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3kGoX-2OK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10853,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10834\/revisions\/10853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}