Friday afternoon - A sunny day for a long walk

After work on Friday morning I decided to do a full walk around all my places and it was very cold but as the sun was shining a perfect day to find a spot in the sun and relax for a while as the next few weeks are going to be very busy due to a few weeks till I am filming in North Wales for a week so I have alot to prep and finish in the next two weeks.

On my way round I filled up the feeders as Brock pools feeding station as they seem to be getting through quite alot of food including the scraps of bread I throw under the thorn bushes for the shier birds and there seem to be a large amount of Bullfinches in the woodland hopefully I can film them tomorrow if all goes to plan.

At the end of the walk I decided we should check out a new area on my local patch down by the canal and after walking across a farmers field we found a lovely area to relax with benches I thinks its some kind of area for boats to moore up for a few days and normally its not used in the winter due to the location of the area being on the edge of countryside and at this time of year the canals get frozen solid and become very quiet. I found a shallow area on the canal where there was an old log which looks like a perfect area for Otters to mark there territory but there was no spraint on it unfortunately but down in the shallow water I spotted alot of Freshwater mussels of various sizes in the water which is great to see as they are a sign of a healthy water habitat and I am sure there are lots of mammals and birds that feed here so its an area to keep an eye on.

Some where on my walk I lost a piece of my tripod which I went looking for today but never found so I will have to buy a replacement in the next few days.

On my way back the Starlings were murmurating over the flashes and the moon was out this is where I normally kayak and as you can see I will not be kayaking anytime soon well as least until the ice melts and the thickness of the ice is 5 to 10 Cm's maybe more but the good about the canal freezing is that most creatures from kingfishers to Otters will be feeding on the river that runs directly alongside the canal so I only have to focus on one place and its good for the wildlife as well as they still have a place to feed so they can survive until the canals start to defrost.

Moonlit murmaration below

We were cold and tired by the time we got back and a nice warm cup of tea was the perfect way to defrost when I got back to my warm office.

In my next blog I will be posting about a new piece of kit I purchased from America and I saw it being advertised a Sunday night TV show.

Lets see if you can work out what I have in mind for it.

Thanks for reading

Mike