Waxwings and Red Crested Pochards!

The weather has been awful here in Somerset since my last blog post, wet, windy and overcast!
  Hardly ideal conditions for photography!
However, I stubbornly still try and take pictures if I can, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to photograph Waxwings at Bradley Stoke Tesco in Bristol!
  These birds are scarce Winter visitors from Scandinavia, but this year there has been a mini 'eruption', where more than normal fly South looking for Berries! This always coincides with a good berry crop in the UK.... it's amazing how they know!
   There were about 14 Waxwings in the Tesco car-park, but they only came down to the berry trees for a few seconds at a time, they spent most of their time high in the surrounding trees, where they often made short flights catching flies, something I wasn't aware they did!
   All my pictures of them were in low light, so are not as good as I would like, but hopefully you will still appreciate what stunning birds they are!

 Earlier in the week I photographed some Red Crested Pochards at Cheddar reservoir. They are beautiful ducks! Most in the UK are thought to have derived from escapes from Wildfowl collections, but there are now small wild populations.

 Below are my waxwing and Red Crested Pochard pictures, plus a few of other birds I've managed in the last week, including Grey Wagtail, Peregrine Falcon and Chiffchaff;

^Above^ - The Waxwings of Bradley Stoke! (One being chased away by a Goldfinch in the bottom pic!)

^Above^ - Red Crested Pochards at Cheddar reservoir.

^Above^ - Pied Wagtails at Cheddar reservoir.

^Above^ - Grey Wagtail at Cheddar reservoir.

^Above^ - Female Mandarin at Cheddar reservoir.

^Above^ - Female Blackbird at Cheddar reservoir.

^Above^ - Carrion Crows at Cheddar reservoir.

^Above^ - Black Headed Gulls at Cheddar reservoir.

^Above^ - Turnstone at Huntspill seawall in Somerset.

^Above^ - Redshank at Huntspill seawall.

^Above^ - Oystercatcher at Huntspill seawall.

^Above^ - Dunlin at Huntspill seawall.

^Above^ - Roe Deer near the busy Edithmead roundabout in Somerset.

^Above^ - Male Blackbird on a very murky day!

^Above^ - Chiffchaff at RSPB Greylake in Somerset....about to catch a fly in the bottom pic!

^Above^ - Coots at RSPB Greylake.

^Above^ - Peregrine Falcon at Greylake.

^Above^ - Shovelers at Greylake.

^Above^ - Teal at Greylake.

^Above^ - Wigeon at Greylake.

^Above^ - Wigeon and one Teal at Greylake.

^Above^ - Singing Robin at Greylake.

^Above^ - Fieldfare at Greylake.

^Above^ - Large flock of Golden Plovers opposite Greylake.

^Above^ - Golden Plover and Lapwing near Greylake.

^Above^ - Mute Swans at Blind Man Sluice near Greylake.

^Above^ - Addressing the crowd...... Cormorants at Cheddar reservoir.

^Above^ - Something sad and preventable.... a dead Vole caught in a discarded can at RSPB Greylake....take your litter home!! Litter kills!

^Above^ - Magpie at Bradley Stoke.

^Above^ - And finally..... the jogger in pink, in mid-air at Cheddar reservoir. :)