Tehidy Country Park

Tehidy Country Park is well known in Cornwall for its friendly Grey Squirrels and birdlife,  The Squirrels will meet you at the entrance to accept a hand fed payment of peanuts,  { If you don't pay they will probably just take the bag out of your pocket anyway !! }

But I didn't go there for the Squirrels and nuthatches etc today,  I was there to capture images of the Kingfisher catching fish which she does quite often in the small car park pond outside of the entrance so I didn't really have to 'Pay' to get in but the squirrels came out and collected  'Their'  nuts anyway,

Capturing images of a Kingfisher fishing is a bit of a waiting game so I decided to snap away at everything that visited the pond including the Squirrel posted above,  There were eleven adult swan in this small pond which looked uncomfortable busy for its size and I wondered if the Kingfisher would put up with this volume of large birds while trying to catch fish,

My first subject was a very busy Goldcrest which flitted about in the birch trees overhanging the pond,  The pair showed four times during the three hours that I was there,

Next up was a fairly cautious Song Thrush which stayed up in the trees and Ivy looking for berries

The two resident Robins at this pond will like the Squirrels eat out of your hand,  They constantly closely remind you that they are there with their calls and you have to watch out when you move as they tend to get under your tripod or feet,

This young Pied Wagtail was foraging around the car park puddles and seemed to be doing quite well perhaps from people emptying pockets and bags as they came and went from their cars,

A semi-loucistic Raven was one of a pair that seemed to have adopted a mother and child as they exited the park on a side walkway,  They all walked over to the small pond and the mother fed the Swan's that were both in and out of the water and the Raven joined in taking their share of the handout presumably just as they had been doing inside the park,

Several Goldfinch stayed up in the Birch tree canopy preferring what was on offer naturally rather than the hand-outs that were so readily available.

A pair of Mallard ducks and a Black Headed Gull flew in from the park a little to late to take advantage of this new food source and soon departed again.

One of the resident Moorhen made a brief appearance but looked a bit teasy with the volume of Swan on the water

A busy little Wren took no notice of the other birds or hand-outs and carried on foraging the waterline for fresh water shrimps and insects producing for me a nice feeding reflection

There was no show from the Kingfisher today but I will be back to try my luck again when all of the Swan have departed,  They all appear to have been driven off of the main park ponds by a particularly dominant Male,