Christmas Party

Male Bearded Tit - Radipole Lake, Weymouth

I generally like to watch Countryfile on a Sunday, it's one of the few TV programmes I do watch. I especially like to get a feel for the coming week's weather and I find the forecast they give is as good as any. When the forecast for Thursday looked very promising I started to hatch a plan.

Locally the sightings of late have been very good and the plan I came up with was to spend the whole day at Radipole Lake. True, it was a bit of a risk as I rarely seem to have much luck there, but it's only a couple of miles down the road and it fitted around other plans I had. I was hoping to get the Bearded Tits, perhaps a Kingfisher, maybe if I was really lucky an Otter and if the Gods were smiling on me too, a Bittern. All have been seen in daylight there over the last week.

Arriving just after it got daylight, the mist was still hanging in the reeds and a quick check at the concrete bridge didn't yield any Otters. In fact there was nothing. I decided the best bet was to circle the Buddleia Loop and then head towards the visitor centre. It wasn't long before I got lucky as I bumped into a fellow tog who was already 'on' a flock of 12 - 15 Beardies. They weren't close and they were quite well hidden by the reeds, but they'd been found. All too soon though, the whole flock flew into the middle of the reeds within the loop and it was a long time before they were located near to a path again. In fact during the day I spent there, I witnessed the same situation three times and walked the Buddleia Loop countless times. But what has this to do with a Christmas party?

Nearing lunchtime I completed another lap of the loop and ended on the concrete bridge. What greeted me took me totally by surprise. Lined up on the bridge were ten of the local wildlife paperazzi, looking for all the world as if it was a party about to happen. After a while ones and twos drifted away, but the party didn't fully break up until about three o'clock. I've naturally met up with others when out before, usually at weekends, but never have I experienced a chance meeting of so many.

At this point there had been some cloud cover for a while, but the signs were that it was about to clear, so I hung on in the hope I was right. I hadn't captured anything I thought would be remotely usable, so I gave it one last try and another lap of the loop. I reached the main path with no sightings at all and set off for the concrete bridge, back to the car and home for a well earned brew. About halfway along I met one of the group who had left earlier and there beside the path was a pair of Beardies. The sun was low by now and the backlight was a bit of a challenge, but if you picked your moment there were clear shots to be had. A superb end to a thoroughly enjoyable day. Never did see a Kingfisher, Otter or Bittern though.

There are more images from the sequence on my Flickr and Facebook pages and on my Twitter and Instagram accounts.