TWO TRIPS TO EYEBROOK RESERVOIR.

I have had two trips to Eyebrook, both for different reasons. My first trip was on Thursday the 7th of December, the forecast was not over special so I decided to go to Eyebrook as it meant I could keep reasonably close to the car and keep the camera dry if it decided to rain, it was unfortunately very cloudy and not good for any decent images. When I got away from home the sun was showing but the farther East I travelled the cloudier it became. And eventually by about 15.30 hrs I got some rain.

I only saw the one Little Owl on by outward journey, but at least I saw one.

My second excursion was on Thursday the 14th of December, my reasoning behind this trip was I had spoken earlier in the year with a professional bird photographer who had got some wonderful images of Red Kites. Talking to him after his show I asked him how he got such good image of the Kites. His reply was you need snow on the ground to highlight the underside of the bird, this will show the wing pattern without any loss of definition of the birds head.

So as we had about 150 mm of snow on the Sunday and another 50 mm on the Wednesday I decided to give this method a try, the roads appeared to be OK if you kept away from the side roads so I got on my way for about 12.00 hrs.

Having only travelled about 7 miles from home, the snow had virtually all but gone, so I carried on hoping it would re appear as I got higher and climbed out of the River Soar valley. Unfortunately this was not to be and most of the fields were clear of snow with small amounts still showing on the shade side of field hedges.

I visited most of the Little Owl sites but saw no birds, one site the farmer was putting some hay into the Barn, at another site the farmer sat in his four wheel drive within metres of the tree and at another site people were walking along the footpath adjacent to the site.

So I carried on through to Eyebrook where small areas of the road were icy but mostly clear as were the fields. I approached the Reservoir down a little country road that had some icy patches and saw my first Red Kite, this was however a silly distance away, by the end of my visit I had seen 18, but not one would behave and come close, so all my images had to be greatly cropped.  

EYEBROOK RERVOIR.

7th of December.

Little Owl Site No. 8.

This was the only bird I saw and what a job getting an image with the bird buried in the middle of a mass of branches, but it obviously saw me arrive and thought "hello that idiots back" and just sat and watched me as I tried to get an in focus shot, wherever I seemed to move, one branch would obscure the bird only to move and find two branches had taken over!!  

Red Kite Near Little Owl Site No. 9.

As I drove up the hill I saw this bird circling slightly to the right of the road, so it was a quick stop and jump out the car and try for an image,[luckily its a road that is used very little] but by then the bird had travelled a good distance away.

EYEBROOK RESERVOIR.



I had a wonderful afternoon just slowly moving around the perimeter road to the Reservoir and even though it was very cold, I spent most of the time in the car {with the heater on} but in the sun it was really good to be out and about.

Red Kite.

This bird was not far outside the Village of Allexton as I head towards Stockerston, the first of a series of long distance images, all very heavily cropped. 

I had atrip around the back road to Hallaton and this bird was well away over the fields to the right of the road and away from the sun. 

They are such a graceful bird in flight, all appears so effortless with just the tail feathers moving to act as a rudder. 

At last an image showing the top of the wings.

This bird was over the Reservoir and probably the closest I managed to get to a bird, this would be 300 metres plus away/  

I sat in an area I visit most of the time when I saw two Red Kites and a Buzzard circling on the far side of the Reservoir so it was a quick chase around and over the inlet stream when I suddenly spotted this single bird so a quick pull off the road and into a gateway and a shot out of the passenger window, laying across the inside of the car, most uncomfortable. 

Buzzard, by the village of Stoke Dry.

By the time I manged to get into the area where I had seen the two Kites and the Buzzard, they had moved a considerable distance so it was a quick drive up the hill through the village of Stoke Dry where over the fields I could see the Buzzard in the distance, no signs of the Kites but I had check of the number and these two Kites made me up to 18 seen.  

This bird was circling very slowly and disappeared into the distance and so did I and got on my way back home as it was very cold, only 0.5 degrees.              .


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 Thank you for your visit, I hope you have enjoyed the images as much as I have in the getting of them, even if it was so very cold.

At least this week I had some birds to watch.


Please appreciate all the images of the Red Kites have been cropped to the extreme,why can't the birds do as the weather did for once and co-operate and fly that much closer. I took numerous other images but most of the other birds were just that bit over far.