Tunstall Park---Dark and Wet

Waited to see what the weather was going to do before going out, dah, waste of time.
Took a run down to Westport and sat in the car, in the rain, looking out of the window at the rain, decided to go home via Tunstall Prk, because I was calling in at Home Bargains in Kidsgrove for some bird seed etc, shock horror the Goosanders are on the lake along with the Little Grebes.
Spent an hour waiting for the birds and the weather to be in the right place for some 1/2 decent pictures.

 

These are about as good as I could get, will have to hope they stay long enough to get them in some decent light.

Boxing Day

Much better day today, went for a wander around the Leek area, ended up at Rudyard where all the normal inhabitants were active.

It was not to bad, then I got a lot of joggers, I don't mind them, they are as entitled as the rest of us to have a day out, they did drive all of the wild life in to hiding but I had got a good few images by then.
Still can't work out if they enjoy it or not, cause most of them look as if they are dying  on their feet.
Will wait and see what Thursday brings, then decide if I am going anywhere.

A wander around Tunstall Park, Wesser and Knype

The weather forecast once again got it wrong, should have been nice on Saturday but wasn't.
So every man and his dog was out today, talking of dogs, is it to much to ask that the owners can at least show some form of control.
Every time I managed to get somewhere near the Little Grebe some dog or other comes along, bounding out of control.
Didn't waste any breath on them, Went down to Wesser instead.

Wet Again

Some "semi retired" people that I know, are in a position, to allow them to sit behind glass and watch all of our glorious nature unfold before their very eyes.
For the rest of us poor souls, we have to go out and get wet. Never mind , it was worth it and I did not really get wet.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish anyone visiting ,  a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

New photo site

I have set up a new photo site with a species based format, you can find it by following the link to "popey's photo gallery" in the link's panel.
It is built on a site called Piwigo, the actual application is free but unless you have a site to host it on it cost's $39 ( £ 32 ) per year to be hosted by PIWIGO.COM.
I picked it up from a posting by Nige Bowers on his blog.

Back o Rudyard

Decided to go and find some Willow Tits, so instead of Knypersley I went to have a look at Rudyard Lake, these were by the bridge at the Rushton end.

Plus a few others.

The rest are on my Picasa site.

Birthday Bash.

On Monday I treated myself to a days holiday for my birthday, before you start guessing, OLD !!!
The weather didn't play ball until late in the day but it was good anyway, with a lot of old faithfuls turning up.
 Just a few here the rest are on my Picasa site.