Thursday 12 March 2015

Some of our beautiful Cromwell Bottom birds

                                                           Bullfinch (M)
                                                                          Ditto
                                                                         Ditto
                                                                        Bullfinch (F)
                                                                                    Ditto
                                                                  Long Tailed Tit
                                                                           Ditto
                                                                  Robin
                                                                 Long Tailed Tits
                                                                                 Jay
                                                          Jay watching me watching it
                                                                                 Jay
                                                                  Reed Bunting (M)
                                                                      Coal Tit
                                                Male Blackbird looking for worms in grass
                                                                          Great Tit
                                                                 Teal on river (M)
                                                                       Coot on Lagoon

10 comments:

David L said...

nice photos allan is this the new lense
good results

Allan said...

Thanks David. Yes. I'm using it at every opportunity.

Dave Brotherton said...

Nice shots Allan, a question for ya- is there any fish in the lagoon ?

Steve Midgley said...

Can I pinch a few for twitter?

Allan said...

Hi Dave.

Dave: There are no fish, as far as we know, in the lagoon. I think there are two reasons:

1: It can and does dry out in hot and dry summer's. It would be good if there was a flow of water coming in to maintain at least some water within the lagoon and some work was done a number of years ago which did suggest some ways of overcoming the problem but they were potentially expensive.

The second issue is the alkalinity of the water. I do a regular ph level test and the lagoon has a ph level of 7.5. I don't know if small fish, like Stickleback's, could survive that ph level.(Any larger fish may have a detrimental effect on the frogs and newts that do well there.)

If anyone has any suggestions as a way forward we would be open to exploring them.

Allan said...

Steve. You can gladly use some of the pictures. As usual, just acknowledge the source.

Allan said...

Steve, I don't think you can download them from the blog. If you email me with which you want to use I'll send them as attachments.

Steve Blacksmith said...

Great pictures Alan.

I don't think the alkalinity would stop fish living there, more the occasional drying out as you said.

Chalk streams in the south of England are famous for trout fishing, but I don't know what pH they get up to.

Dave Brotherton said...

I was thinking it would be great for the birdlife if there were fish in the lagoon, I've seen the Water Rail and the Little Grebe in there but they don't seem to stay long that's the reason why I asked as it seems pretty quiet most of the time.
Thanks for your reply Allan & Steve

Allan said...

Thanks Steve & Dave. I too, along with many other,would love to see some small fish in the lagoon.