Astbury Mere Visit 2

Today we had meant to be heading off to Derbyshire to see the Hawfinch at Cromford but with the weather forecast as it was and what we woke up to it was a quick change of plan.

So off we set to re-visit Astbury Mere, I was intending of visiting here this weekend anyway just we ended up going a day early.
At least this time the place wasn't full of prats in Lycra although the light wasn't great for shots at least the full dull meant I didn't have to worry about the position of the Sun, a chap who taught me a great deal about railway photography always reckoned on high cloud being the best light again no worries about the Sun's position but still a decent amount of light to take photographs.
A few other birders were knocking around and pointed us in right direction of where the Slav Grebe was hiding out, still in the opposite corner from the visitor centre.

Slavonian Grebe Astbury Mere

On a garden birding front Lesley had told me about a pair of Siskins that had been visiting the garden over the last few days, well today I finally got a chance to see them for myself, and they were one of the fist birds to visit our feeders, so a nice garden tick, the male Brambling is still hanging around although we didn't see the female today.

Yesterday I submitted 3 shots to the Keele Open Photography Competition/exhibition, fingers crossed now that at least one gets accepted for exhibition, up to now I have been quite lucky and had photos exhibited on previous attempts. These are the three I have selected, I will find out on the 18th if I have been successful.