I decided on Wednesday the 2nd of November to have a quick trip out, firstly to visit Swithland Reservoir to look for the Mandarin ducks { which didn't materialise } so I then had a quick visit to Cossington Meadows and Rectory Marsh to see if the Glossy Ibis was still in attendance. This time I parked at the other end of the site and walked through the fields so as to finish by the water with the sun coming from my right hand side. On arriving I found a lady and gent already on site and stood about fourty metres from them was the Ibis. I took my first safety shots at about 50 metres and then slowly approached them. The lady said she had been on site for about an hour and the bird had been reasonably stationary all the time she had been on site. The gent had apparently only arrived about five minutes before me so we all settled in and watched until it got into the right position sun wise and then fired a few shots to check settings.
Eventually another couple arrived, one with a small camera and her husband with a camera phone. We all tried to be tactful and say not to go close to the bird, but after about ten minutes it became evident we would have been better telling the Ash Tree behind us, She got closer and closer to the bird, so I said please stay where you are, other people are arriving and it would be most unfair to flush the bird. Her answer was "we haven't all got big lenses" and proceeded forward yet again. She eventually flushed the bird so then she and her husband got both barrels, I then remembered some words that had been used on the LROS site and finished with them. " Please do us all a favour and take up a different interest". With that they both set off with the husband trying to retaliate against me to the other side of the water where the bird had flown again only to disturb the bird and luckily send back to us.
With that they obviously decided not to come back via us and took the long walk back to the car via Cossington. We all said good riddance, and carried on with getting some images. This was followed very shortly by a gent with two dogs who walked up to me and said "its still here then" and then proceed to walk towards the bird and disturb it. I will not repeat what I said to him but I apologised to the lady who was I must admit in fits of laughter and said " I could not have put it better myself". After this we gave it best and left the poor bird in peace.
First safety shot taken at about fifty metres. |
I then walked up to the other people on site so the rest of the images are between thirty and fourty metres. |
So far the bird has been stood on one leg. |
And eventually had a scratch. |
And this is when the stupid woman disturbed the bird. |
And it flew to the other side of the pool, also frightened the Teal. |
This is after she chased the bird round the other side of the pool and it returned to within about fifty metres from us. |
It then walked closer to us, this at thirty metres approx. |
It then proceeded away from us feeding at speed with head down. |
Very dificult subject to get decent images from. body in the sun but the head completely in the shade. |