Friday, 14 February 2025

Kedleston Kingfishers et al!

 

The Kedleston Kingfisher

13th February 2025

Four hardy birders met in the car park at exactly 0946.  Hugs were absolutely necessary, not just because of our friendship, but it was flippin' cold.  Not sure about a still, standing around birding activity, we decided on brisk walks interspersed with some serious stuff.  Maggie, having seen the bird list outside reception,  requested a kingfisher and a pintail.  She's so demanding! 

We didn't fancy the stepping stones in lieu of the out-of-action bridge across lots of mud, so opted for the main bridge where there was plenty to see and plenty of goose poo to try and avoid. .  Here are the orange-billed ones. 

Oystercatcher with grubby bill.

Greylag with clean bill. 

The task was made a bit harder as I didn't always say exactly where the birds were.  Plus, adding in counting the birds was fun, and the coots decided their chances of being noticed were better if they milled around in a large group. 

A lovely view of the Hall, the estate buildings and bridge arches to perfectly frame

three gelly heads! 

We return over the bridge to further test our skills on the other part of the lake.  With further counting and an added task to distinguish between male and female, we find the black and white birds.  Plenty of tufted ducks diving around and good views of goosander 


Handsome male goosander, with female following. 

But, can we find Maggie a kingfisher? 
After a few attempts at following each other's instructions of which tree and branch it had landed on, we find it, at least three times!  

obviously helped by wearing one of the traffic light hats.

Pam was so busy taking this photo, that she missed the kingfisher but she did spot a grey heron in the  tree. 

As we'd found one of Maggie's target birds, we headed towards the cafe for a much needed  warm drink. Jo found us and having admitted she had never been inside the cafe, because we nearly always meet in the warmth and sit outside, we decided a celebratory photo was needed  As luck would have it, one of my friends was on the next table. 

Thank you Val. Hope your coffee didn't get too cold!

We cut through to the gardens and admire the back of the Hall, which is rather grand. 






The gardens were showing signs of winter plants with resplendent groups of 

hellebore 

small swathes of snowdrops

and more snowdrops drifting on their own.

Our walk through the woods was virtually silent with viewings of a only couple of blackbirds. Maggie and I forged ahead (she was hell bent on getting a pintail).  We'd not realised that Pam was fading fast to the point where she disappeared altogether!  Fortunately Jo and Alison filled us in and we now only had to find Jo a kingfisher. We can't be double lucky, can we? 

Right where the kingfishers normally pose for close up photos  at Splash Pool, we find a coot finding nesting material on the edge of the fall...

re named kamikaze coot!

Grey heron likes living on the edge too!

And hooray, Jo finds a kingfisher too!

We get back to the cafe in time to see that Pam has magically reappeared with friends Helen M and Julia, tucking into rather lovely hot bowls of steaming red thai soup, except for  

Alison who plays odd babe out and opts for a bean soup.

We chatted about the usual health issues, rip off dentists and holidays.  Our shared topic as a whole group revolved around various forms of recycling and silly booking systems which don't encourage folks to save the environment. Selling on 'stuff' as Helen M puts it, seemed to be a reasonable way to get rid of sentimental family heirlooms from lovely bone china sets to grandfather clocks (ah, no, Helen M has kept one of those!). 

Finally, we come to books and the rediscovery of the library... not necessarily for borrowing books, but they are essential for keeping one' s own heating bills down!  

So, we come the end of an action packed fun day out .  And here's a bit of proof that we did find the kingfisher (another time for the pintail Maggie).  It's a dodgy photo, but it is there...

 

Level 2 birding with numbers today!
32+coot 
2 mute swans 
3 teal
8 goosander (5m 3f)
24+ greylag 
too many canadas
2 pheasant 
6 tufted  ducks (4m 2f), lots of ducking and diving
3 shelduck  
little egret
2 grey heron
1 kingfisher (bird of the day)
2 great tit 
robin
6 blackbird
jackdaw
jay
buzzard (did you all see it on the ground on the way out?)