White-billed Diver in the sun!

No fog today so Wayne couldn't resist a second visit to Woodhall Spa

White-billed Diver Woodhall Spa

Short 4k video taken late this afternoon of this stunning bird



                     

Blue Lagoon Update

Well what a day not quite sure how it happened but I ended up being interviewed for Look North this afternoon giving my opinion of how the 3 hectare Blue Lagoon nature reserve will be impacted by a Jet Ski Club whizzing around it.  Even the reporter couldn't see the logic of what is going on and interestingly it appears now that the Council are saying that they haven't suggested the club move from Ashbyville to Blue Lagoon although this isn't my interpretation of what the council spokesman   said yesterday on Radio Humberside, so who knows what's going on.
If anyone feels strongly about saving a wonderful small freshwater habitat for wildlife then please submit your feelings here http://www.planning.northlincs.gov.uk/plan?ref=PA/2016/1862 lots of people have submitted their support for the Jet Skiers virtually all from out of the county so we need all the help we can get.  Objections have to be in by 30th of this month.

Blue Lagoon Nature Reserve

I have just been made aware of a proposal to change this local nature reserve to a Jet Skiing club!  See this article

http://www.scunthorpetelegraph.co.uk/wave-of-disapproval-for-jet-skiers-plan-to-move-to-blue-lagoon-nature-reserve/story-30068029-detail/story.html

I can't believe this proposal can go ahead when you consider this post I wrote in the summer

https://normanbynature.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/orchids-and-burnets.html

Is no where safe for nature anymore - please object here I understand lots of the jet skiers have been on the site to register their approval so we need to fight back!

http://www.planning.northlincs.gov.uk/api/Cached/PlanningWeb?ReqType=F&Refno=PA/2016/1862

A New Year

It's the 8th of January already and I haven't had time to wish blog readers a Happy Xmas let alone Happy New Year, where does the time go!  So what's been happening lately in Normanby I hear you ask, so here's a little summary of the last few weeks.  In the garden on the 8th December the mild winter meant we had our earliest invasion of newts, they were everywhere and you couldn't step foot on the patio or lawn without a torch or you would step on them.  I worry about them now as the weather has turned much colder and the pond has been frozen quite a few times over the last ten days or so, I suppose they go back into hibernation and aren't daft enough to get trapped under the ice.  Our mild winter has also meant almost daily sightings of a Buff-tailed Bumblebee feeding on the Mahonia which is in full beautiful flower at the moment.  Perhaps the most fascinating feeding event I have observed was  the antics of a Robin catching and eating Caddis Fly larvae, I had seen it diving into the edge of the pond and then flying onto a neighbouring bench with pieces of twig, prising a grub out and discarding the debris in a neat pile.  I wonder how many times this behaviour has been seen before?  On the birding front we currently have a local flock of 32 Waxwings and we have had up to 50 Pied Wagtails feeding in the turf fields behind the garden.  The park is holding a sizeable flock of Redwings and a handful of Siskins but not a lot else to be honest.  Photographically we have both been playing about with new equipment, Ive got a new iPhone which is taking some quite good landscape shots and Wayne has just got a new digiscoping camera which he is experimenting with.  He has gone for the Panasonic GX8 with 20mm pancake lens but the jury is still out on whether it will be better than his old Canon S120 - here's the first images taken in the park with the iPhone all unprocessed straight off the phone

and these all digiscoped with the Panasonic GX8