Friday 1 May 2009

Piece and Quiet




No it's not a spelling mistake. Moor Piece is an area of woodland in the Forest Of Bowland, AONB. It is privately owned but is managed as a nature reserve by Lancashire Wildlife Trust. It is dominated by Birch which has self-seeded onto what was in the past an area of open peat bog. It is important for it's woodland,colony of Green Hairstreak butterfly  and varied birdlife. I had visited earlier in the week but was thwarted by a wet afternoon. I did however meet up with another bird photographer and we had an interesting conversation about birds and cameras.
I returned the next day on what was weatherwise a much better day. The birdlife responded to the better conditions and good numbers of birds were singing. My new found friend Paul was there again and we enjoyed a super afternoon trying to photograph a recently arrived male Pied Flycatcher which was periodically singing from high up in the birch trees in his efforts to attract a mate. It was difficult first of all to find the bird and then to try and obtain decent images of the bird as it was often concealed by branches as it constantly flitted between different parts of the woodland.
We persevered however and did managed to obtain one or two decent images. I will however return to see if I can do better as there will be more arrivals of Summer Migrants to this area of woodland. I had not visited Moor Piece for a couple of years and had forgotten how special this woodland is. Above all it was a beautiful place to be on a very nice Spring day and we had both enjoyed the peace and quiet. The images above show typical poses of a male Pied Flycatcher and a general view of Moor Piece Nature Reserve.

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like a wonderful place Brian - Pied Fly's and Green Hairstreak can't be bad. Great images too.

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