Saturday T Shirt, Sunday Souwester !!

Saturday looked promising so off we went to Fountains Abbey and Studley. Fountains is an amazing place if you just want to go and look at the scenery, it took us nearly 5hrs just to wander round it without even getting into the Abbey. The pic is of the Abbey taken from Anne Boleyns Seat by my beloved, the hike up there is a training climb for Snowdon or Ben Nevis, although when we got to the top there was a 60+ Grandma with a pushchair and a child to fit in it (I was impressed). Coming down was just as hard with it being damp underfoot and the growing carpet of leaves making it very slippy indeed.



We actually went there to see the deer and ended up spending over 3 hrs in the Abbey grounds but the deer was unbelievable to, we didnt realise it was an open park and some of the deer were only a couple of feet from you and if you stood still they would not be bothered too much



There were several Adult Stags around must of them bellowing with all their might. There was one Stag on the ground and one of the Rangers said that it might have been injured in a bit of a ruck or more than likely it was tired out from all the "attentions" it had been paying the females.



These 2 were most vocal and the one on the right eventually took all the females away leaving the other standing by himself but eventually he wandered round and managed to get a few for himself. I am definitely going back there as there was just too much to see in one visit.



On Sunday I woke early expecting to see bucketfuls of rain but it was quite dry and not much wind. Bugger it, Im off to Big Waters for a couple of hours. Just as I arrived it started to drizzle and by the time I left it was coming down horizontally and I had to walk into it to return to the car. Only 1 other birder had dropped in in the 3hrs I was there. Stopped off at the other hide and spent 40 mins with a couple of other lunatic birders out on a day like this. Well it was worthwhile going out as I saw my first Ruddy Duck but couldnt get any decent pics because of
the rain.

.

Also accompanying the Ruddy for some quite considerable time was a couple of Little Grebes who did an inordinate amount of fishing and I did wonder how many fish they could actually eat when one of them got to about its 10th fish but then it seemed to be playing with it, just letting it go then grabbing it again before it had gone 6inches.

I would have put this video higher up but when I loaded it in it kept going to the end so just left it there. This was one of the first sights I saw when I went into the park and the wife was beside herself with more oohs and aahs than I have heard in a while!!

Well nothing more till the weekend, I just hate this darkness or is it work I hate ??