I’ve been a bit busy at home this past fortnight and this morning was the first chance I had to get out and about with the camera. I hadn’t been to the reserve at Fairburn for a fortnight so as it was a nice pleasant morning I loaded the gear into the car and headed off to Fairburn. The temperature this morning was 18C with a light westerly wind.

It was 9.15am when I arrived at the visitors centre for a coffee and a catch up with the wardens and what has been happening on the reserve since my last visit. I made my way along the Discovery trail to the ‘Pick up hide’. There was already another couple of photographers to the right hand side of the hide so I set the gear up on the left hand side of the hide. I was surprised and quite shocked to see that the lake to the front of the hide had completely disappeared, dried up, so no chance of seeing any waders here this morning.  I mounted the camera onto the tripod clamp in the hope of catching some pics of a Fox or Deer strolling around the fringes of the now empty lake. 

As I looked through the hide windows and the only birds I could see in front of me was a distant Lapwing and a pair of female Pheasants, no Mallard, Widgeon, Teal, or Moorhen or any other waders etc. Looking over to the Sand Martin Wall the odd Sand Martin was visiting but the majority look to have already fledged.

The light westerly wind had strengthened significantly since my arrival at the hide and it was quite unpleasantly cool as it blew through the hide windows, after about forty five minutes the two photographers that were sat to the right of the hide left and headed back towards the centre so I moved across to where they had been sat. One of the volunteer wardens had just filled the bird feeders up so I was hoping we might see some activity. The Grey Squirrel was first on the scene and hanging from its back legs promptly started to feed from the feeder, just as it started to feed a Magpie came and landed on the same branch and after about ten seconds the Magpie nipped the squirrels tail so hard that the squirrel dropped from the feeder onto the woodland floor, never to be seen again! That was the highlight of the morning for me and with a continuing strengthening wind I decided to call it a day, pack the gear up and head back to the centre for a coffee and get warmed up again. Let’s hope my return visit is more productive.