Lakes, Dales and Moors

Three days in the Lakes at a very quiet time of year and then diverted to North Teesdale in search of Black Grouse that I had not seen for years but inevitably we hit the only wet day of the week on the Black Grouse quest so departed mid-morning and wandered back via the North York Moors to add Red to the week’s grouse list.

Langdales - the Canon R6II and Rf 100-500

Signs of spring were few but it did hit 16C on our last day in the Lakes

Female Goosander on the river

The walk up Langdales did produce a Dipper though the angles were not great for photography

Esthwaite Water on a dull day when the sun was forecast - well by the MET Office anyway

My annual Marsh Tit encounter seems to be in this area - but as the British Willow Tit heads to extinction the Marsh Tit seems to be following

Far from satisfactory images of this singing male

A hazy but sunny day on 6th

Although still bright when we arrived in upper Teesdale by the following morning there was low cloud and haze and the rain soon arrived

A gang of Brown Hares chillin on the moors

and a bit of distant boxing albeit in very poor light

Good to see so many Lapwings tumbling and displaying

The number of displaying Curlew was amazing and their bubbling song produced an amazing soundscape

The Black Grouse were generally distant

Ended up putting the 1.4x converter on the 200-800 lens which is not ideal in dull light

But at well over 1km range the results were almost acceptable as record shots

male in flight in the late evening sun

I was pleased to see about five females but even on a green field they were rather well disguised

Their ability to fade into spread manure was also impressive

There seemed to be very little lekking taking place

Female on a dry stone wall

Preening the undertail coverts

Just before we left we took a drive up another road and came across this male close to the roadside: I had seen a few males with brownish wings and poor combs but it had not registered that they were 2cy males like this bird

Red Griese were not hard to find on the roadside across the North York Moors - far too much heather burning and grouse management makes me question my photography of this species but they are an attractive bird

Plenty of males displaying but as usual the light was pretty dire

why did the grouse cross the road?