A mixed bag for a mixed day

A day that promised lots of sunshine, took up inland along the Tyne this weekend.  Between Newburn and Wylam is an area I will visit between May and August because of the Sand Martins that nest along some of the banks.  There are also a number of ponds dotted around the area, of which one of them I stopped off at.  What caught my eye was the colour and pattern the reeds were creating at the back of parts of this particular pond – a nice backdrop for a picture of a bird I thought.  Only trouble was, it wasn’t exactly a hive of activity and there was only two sections that stood out and had a clear view of, so I decided to get my camera out at a low view point and wait. The only obvious birds around were a nesting pair of Swans, two pairs of Moorhens and a Mallard family.  At first, apart from the Swan, the others were wary of my presence and stayed at the far back in the reeds.  After about half an hour, they started to swim around, cautiously at first, but eventually ignoring me.  The only trouble was none were going past either of the two ‘ideal’ locations.  It was an hour before the Moorhens started to go past the furthest of these spots though moving quickly making it difficult to get a good picture, especially due to the very low angle (I was lying down flat) and it was hard to see through the view finder correctly, keep a straight horizon and focus accurately.

After a while, it became obvious as to why the Moorhens were moving quickly back and forth past this spot, it must have been the territorial boundary between the two pairs of birds and a fight broke out, with eventually all four birds involved.  Unfortunately for me, as had been concentrating on photographing a single bird at distance and had just attached my converter on the lens to give me a bit more reach but a slower focusing speed, a narrower depth of field and slower shutter speed.  The action was over in a flash, sweeping from right to left and with my camera set on a slow frame rate and the other disadvantages, I wasn’t able to get a decent image.

A few minutes later, everything was back to normal,  a Swan swam past as did a Mallard family and the Moorhens had withdrawn to their respective parts of the pond.  By this time I was back down to a bare 500mm lens, which was fortunately as, while positioning the lens on an ideal spot of reed for what I was expecting a Mallard to swim past, instead he took off and all the disadvantages I had previously had with the Moorhens were gone and managed to get a series of decent image of the bird as it went past.

Of course the main purpose of the trip, was to check on the the Sand Martins this year.  I’ve been watching them for a number of years and recently they had moved further up from their previous nest site, but, unfortunately, due to the fewer nesting opportunities there has, correspondently, been fewer Sand Martins.  The image below shows the bank where they used to nest.  It’s changed.  There has been no obvious erosion from the river or from the top, but the bank is not as steep has more of a slope and so grass has managed to get a better hold, making it easier for predators to access the nests within the bank.  Previous examples of my successes here at this same spot (and a predator attack) in the past when the birds were successfully nesting here in large numbers. There was then today very few Sand Martins compared to others seen at the same spot at the same time of year on this day.  It could still be early and it still seems quite cool, but I’m guessing the nesting area will have moved elsewhere for the most part.

Panoramic view point of the same spot