To Dover for Scaup and Grey Wagtail

For the second week running I got up early, loaded the car, but never actually went out. Last week it was the constant rain and today it was cold, windy and so overcast it was still dark at 7.30.

Eventually I got bored with sitting around the house and went down to Dover to see the scaup. Today  I found it along side the shops with the coots and moorhens where it was happily feeding.

I’m sure this bird is getting more confiding in that today  it didn’t swim off at the first sight of me but continued feeding on the far side of the dock (10-15yrds away) whilst I stood against the railings in full view. As normal lots of excuses about the light etc impacting image quality…….

Scaup

Next stop was Russell Gardens to try for a grey wagtail. It was actually quite nice at the gardens because there was next to no wind, the only problem being the noise of traffic and the water cascading over the weirs making it difficult to hear bird calls.

I walked the full length of the ornamental pool and up to the lake but all I’d seen was 3 robins and 5 goldcrests – there were probably more but I wasn’t really looking, I couldn’t hear them with all the noise  and there was no way I’d get a picture of one of them. I’ve never seen the wagtails on the lake so I retraced by steps.

Literally on the first weir/water fall on the return leg I spotted a grey wagtail and shot off a few pictures of it standing in the flowing water.

Grey Wagtail

It then flew to the far bank and I followed getting shots when I could.

Grey Wagtail

During the 30 minutes I was with the bird a second grey wag, a male, appeared on the far bank but he stayed out of camera range.