Derbyshire Outing

We popped across the boarder today into deepest darkest Deryshire, the first port of call being Bakewell for the Framers Market which is one of the best in our humble opinion.

We spent the morning buying a few bits and bobs, the Goat Sausages and Mutton Sausages are fantastic and so is the Winkle Brewery beer so after stocking up on the essentials in life and having lunch we headed off.

I always like seeing Shrike although we never have any luck I have wondered around the Chase and other spots looking for these birds but generally failing to see anything. But with Beeley Moor being so close and reports in general being positive how easy the bird is to spot we made our way to the Beeley Triangle.
Looks a decent spot for birding and soon as we arrived we saw the bird and managed to watch it from the car which saved Lesley or Gem getting wet I did venture out to grab the necessary record shot.

The Shrike put on a nice little show of hunting around the little patch of moorland and even showed off its ability to hover.

Also noted was a rather battered looking Pheasant, Red Grouse and Meadow Pipit, not bad for 30 minutes in damp windy conditions.

Fairhaven Lake

I decided it was time to pay Fairhaven Lake a visit another new spot for me, although I have heard about it after a Red Necked Grebe appeared there some years ago, this time it was of the Red Throated variety that was luring me in.

The weather forecast was for it to be overcast till 11 and then to brighten up in the end it rained till about 11 and then just stayed grey! So well done BBC on getting that totally wrong.
Any way after first turning up me and Gem were soon watching a small group of Knot feeding with the odd Redshank thrown in for good measure, having successfully bagged these it was off to find our main prey the Red Throated Diver, my one and only ever tick of this bird had so far been a rather distant bird at Kinmel Bay in North Wales so the chance to get up close and personnel was hard to resist.
I found the bird asleep at the end of the Lake near the Spitfire on a plinth which is quite a nice feature as monuments go.

As the bird seemed to be in no mood to wake up I decided to pop into the RSPB Ribble Discovery centre and see what was what, turned out they had a very tame Turnstone that was even known to pop into the shop looking for something to eat.

Heading back down to the far end for lunch the diver had actually woken up and had come quite close in shore allowing for a few shots.

A passing walker with the usual dogs spooked the bird and it headed back off to the far bank by the island so that was that.

As the weather never bucked up we had a coffee and ice cream and headed off home.