Meanwhile, Back in the Valley

Linnet
Wheatear

Whinchat

Willow Warbler

Looking down to Alwinton

Meanwhile back in Coquetdale it was time to have another tour to see what was where. I hadn’t spent much time with one of my favourites of the valley, the whinchat, so that and wheatear would be my targets for a morning, as well as checking out the willow warbler’s nest, conveniently sited by the side of a newly opened cafe at Barrow Burn, this was nothing if not civilized wildlife photography. Whinchat I know wouldn’t be a problem, for this is the best place in England for the species, a walk down any stretch of the valley road will reveal their presence, contentedly singing it seems from every frond of new fern. Wheatear had been a little more difficult this year, although there were plenty males with juveniles in tow about, unfortunately they were flitting about all over the place on their feeding rampage. Although this was great to watch it made it difficult to photograph these terrific birds, as for the lack of females, well I figured they were back on the nest with second broods.
All in all it tuned out to be not a bad mornings work with successful shots of all three birds, although I doubt I will ever emulate my image of a whinchat of a couple of years back when one regularly perched on a foxglove for me, and so close we could have been on speaking terms. But then I did get a bonus shot, that of a linnet feeding in the ferns, it was very skittish, but settled briefly giving me enough time to get my image.