Sunday, May 02, 2010

Garganey

The most exciting birding and wildlife sightings in my opinion are mostly unexpected and generally therefore fortuitous in nature and this mornings events just reinforced that as far as I am concerned.

Just before 10:00hrs I flushed a pair of Garganey feeding on vegetation on the River Calder near industrial Brighouse, an unlikely setting to say the least. I contacted DJS immediately as the pair flew west towards Brighouse in the direction of EGP.

I bombed back to my car and drove home to collect my camera and then returned to an area on the river just east of the town centre and decided to leg it along the river bank on the off chance that the pair might have landed further upstream as there were decent numbers of Mallard and the odd Canada Goose on the river at the time.

As it turned out the Garganey had flown about half a mile west along the river just east of Brighouse, so I got on all fours and scrambled along the riverbank and managed to rattle a volley of shots off before the Garganey took flight once again and flew in a westerly direction high over the town centre following the path of the river.





No apologies for the number of photos of these cracking birds





A few minutes later on the same stretch of water 3 Dipper appeared from the direction of Brighouse and 2 males (presumably) started singing and chasing one another before posturing on the riverbank.



Calderdale birding does not get much better than this!


As an afterthought I have enclosed another photo of the Garganey which were feeding close to the riverbank in a not dissimilar manner to Teal.

11 comments:

Jim Welford said...

Wow! Love the fist shot, m +f. Very jealous, love these birds. Went down this afternoon and had a good look round, best I could do was f.goosander, not bad but way short of the mark.

Jeff Cox said...

What a great story. I could read entries like this all day - we don't get too many opportunities to wax lyrical but when we do let's all enjoy it. Thanks David.

heavy birder said...

Fantastic photos and what a great find, only the seventh record for Calderdale.The last in that area was a drake on the Ski Lake at EGP on 11th May 1993 seen by JB, MS and fortunatly by myself.Well done David and welcome to the Garganey club.

David Tattersley said...

Thanks for the kind comments guys and do I get a badge for joining the 'Club' Nick?

AndyC said...

More like the 'Golden Bollocks'

TheBaldIbis said...

Well done. A pair of crackers.....but where are they now?

S Gray said...

WELL DONE DAVE YOU KEEP TURNING THEM UP NICE TO SEE CALDERDALE GETTING SOME GOOD BIRDS

AndyC said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
TheBaldIbis said...

Had another mooch around for them today. Yesterday Nick and I turned up a Mandarin on EGP whilst looking for the Garganey. And today I turned up yet another Mandarin at Anchor Pit Flood Lock. This one has paired with, and is guarding, a Mallard duck who is currently sitting on eggs. Should be interesting.

Mike Henshaw said...

Great capture for Calderdale and a wonderful set of photos.Well done.

Gan Ainm said...

Well done David.