Walton Balancing Lake 7th November

Recently there has been a sighting of two Bearded Tits seen at Walton Balancing lakes, in Milton Keynes (right next to the Open University), now these are one of my all time favourite birds, the males are sublime in their orange grey and black, the females are also pretty stunning in their orange feathering, and on top of that it is one of those birds I have always wanted to photograph (they are just so photogenic). With that said they would also be a new Bucks tick for me, so I decided on Friday (yeah I know late post) to pop down and try my luck and so Walton Balancing lake is the destination for today’s post.

I arrived amid a light shower but the area seemed quite still, so I had high hopes (it was meant to be on and off showers mixed with sunshine), walking down to the reed bed lined boardwalk, I was greeted by a lovely male Mallard, swimming alone on the small pond, he quickly disappeared but I was soon in amongst the reeds and had Water Rails calling all around, their pig like squeal coming from all over the decent sized beds. I think in all I counted around 9 birds, which is pretty impressive, I just wish I had seen one!

Wandering down to the first viewing station (it’s a blind rather than a hide (the hides built here have been burnt down more often than I can remember) and offers a lovely view over the reeds, however it was now that I realised I was probably on a losing streak today as the wind picked up and was blowing the reeds all over the place, beardies hate the wind!

I decided to chance a wander around and see what I could see (still hoping for the beardies) and if I’m honest of my walks today was probably my least productive, there were good numbers of Redwing and Fieldfare flying over, the usual Magpies, a few Blue Tit, Great tit and Long-tailed tit and a rather confiding Robin, but that was pretty much all. There were no ducks on the open area of the lakes, just two swans, and nothing else over aaprt from a lone Great Spotted Woodpecker. And so I decided I’d try to be a little different with my photographs (after the birds below).

Abstracts

And so I decided to try a few abstracts, many didn’t come off in any way shape or form, but two (not including the reed above) I quite liked, Photo 1 is a capture of rain in the reeds, it shouldn’t work, but there is something about it which I think does.

Photo 2 is one I was luck with due to the weather and I have boosted the colours but is a photo I like to call inside a rainbow. It was shot with a 400mm lens of a section of rainbow in the sky, I really like it, but I’d love to hear your thoughts?

I gave up after a few hours without seeing anything else of note and headed home.