After looking at several other peoples photos from Wallington Hall's bird hide I arranged a trip out with my pal Keith Reeder to see what we could find - BUGGER ALL was the answer !
Apparently the feeders wouldn't be filled up because it was a bank holiday! Looking at the lack of food I would suggest they had been empty for more than a few hours not a scrap of food was to be found around the feeding station. This is something I will be taking up with the national trust as we both ended up feeling very much ripped off and rather sad for all the hungry birds that we spotted in the trees hanging about for a feed.
After an hour or so in the hide we give up and headed into the grounds, on the way into the woodland I spotted a deer on the far edge of a field, too far to get a pic of it but nice to see. So off we wandered into the woods, the light was poor and nothing much was about so we continued along the river then back onto the road where I spotted a Kestrel sitting high on a tree watching for some food to fly past.
From here we headed into the warm green house, wow was it warm! We then headed outside and found several rather friendly little robins.
After several minutes taking robin pics we headed back to the carpark. On the way I spotted my next target species - a Red Squirrel, unfortunately way up in the tops of the tallest trees in the woods so no photos for me again.
After our very disappointing day out at Wallington we ended it at the QEII for some BIF shots. While we were snapping away Keith noticed someone else with the same 100-400L lens snapping away at Pipits and Wagtails and covered in lots and lots of MUD - It was Alan T - Great to finally bump into Alan after e-mail conversations for many months its always nice to bump into someone face to face.
Here's the best of the QEII pics
