Rainy March - 22/03/2013

After driving though heavy snow up in Birmingham last night, there was heavy rain back here in Cardiff, and I took a short and soggy visit to Forest Farm this morning. Usual suspects around, including aerial combatant Kingfishers, threat calling noisily and chasing each other near the Llyn Y Gamlas hide. Took a few shots of this calling male Bullfinch before my camera was saturated -

Singing in the rain. Literally.

There were also Treecreeper, and Green Woodie in among the trees by the stream behind the hide, and also a singing male Wren displaying. I think there's probably a nest nearby there as there were two on the return journey from the hide which I assume where a pair, so it's probably in the holly there somewhere.







I've also got this unusual item growing in the garden at the moment, and the closest I can ID it to is Yellow Brain Fungus-

Nice

Forest farm visit Feb 2013

I had a day off work on my own so I decided to go for a spin around the local patch to see what was about. Spring seemed to be in the air, and there was plenty of activity from the local bird populations, with pairs of Bullfinch near the second hide, Water Rail from the first, along Treecreeper and Nuthatch in the trees along the side of the river outside, as well as all the usual suspects. There were plenty of kingfisher passes and I heard some distant yaffling several times. Most unusual was a female mallard up a tree which I spotted alongside the river by the hides.

This Heron was taking it's lunch as I peered into the marsh areas from the canal side -
















The Little Grebe was also still present, fishing for minnows whilst I watched -

And of course the resident Forest Farm Robins were posing as usual -