BIrds at Mount Stewart Gardens and Lake

These photographs are taken of the birds on the Mount Stewart Estate in March and April of this year.  It was noticeably that there were more visibly birds on the lake in March whereas in April some had disappeared, probably to another area to breed and others had in fact started breeding and were sitting on their eggs.  This Mute Swan below was one of the signets that bred last year but they were not around when I returned in April. So the first 11 shots are taken in March followed by the April photographs.

  Tufted Duck

Four Mallard ducks coming towards me.

There were 2 your year old Swans still with their parents.

Coot

Great Tit – not the best side of him perhaps!

Now the rest of the shots were taken in April.  

The Gulls on the lake were all Lesser Black backed Gulls.

Little Grebe – in fact there were several of them.

Moorhen

Coot

Tufted Ducks

Now for the exciting news and views.  This Mute Swan was sitting on her nest only feet away from me.  She had 7 eggs although at this point I had not seen them.

She was either dosing or moving her nesting material closer around her.

This is the male Swan and you will see him on the video at the end of this post of it moving the reed material around in the water and then going into the middle of the lake to have a bath returning back to the bank near the female to preen.

On that day, the first time I saw the swan on her nest she never got up off the eggs so after I had photographed the rest of the garden, I returned to stay to see if I could get a shots of the eggs should she raise herself up.

I had been there for about 40 mintues when she stared to raise herself up and I decided to record the event of seeing the eggs on video (I thought).  I was so excited when I pressed the button that I did not notice is was on the setting for still photography and when I pressed it again to when I thought I was stopping the video after I had seen the eggs momentaryily, I realised my terrible mistake.  It was not on the video setting!!! I was so disappointed.

This is the male returning after his bath.

So unfortunately this is the shot I got when I thought I was stopping the video!!!  I am putting this shot into my post as a reminder (to ME) to be more careful with my settings especially when I get excited!!

You can access the short video at

http://youtu.be/uAHfaDZ-k9w

if there is a black space below, click it and the video will appear.

Thanks for visiting.  If you were as disappointed to see the eggs as I was, then CLICK HERE.  On the Mount Stewart web site, Trevor Moffet managed to capture a shot  of the 7 eggs.

Many thanks for leaving comments on any of my posts.