Lake District June 2021
I had only ever visited the Lake District once before. That was when we were staying in a friends cottage to break up the trip back from NW Scotland. We did spend a pleasant day driving around part of it and having a nice walk just north of Ullswater. My daughter and her partner were coming with us and we'd booked a Jenkinson's Cottage close to Loweswater The trip up wasn't to bad even though it poured with rain for half the journey but during the course of our weeks stay it was dry for most of the the week apart for a bit of drizzle on the Tuesday and first thing on Thursday. Otherwise the week was a mix of sunshine and patchy cloud and the occasional period of high cloud, which was normally just beyond the area I'd chosen to concentrate on. I had been given some tips from a friend that walks her dogs in the park. These turned out to be very useful. The one location that I wanted to visit was St Bee's Head, a seabird colony a 30 minute drive away. The day I set aside for that turned out to be the sunniest day of the holiday. I was expecting the beach at St Bee's to have a few holiday makers on it, especially as there's a caravan park next to the beach. I had no problem's with that, I was virtually the first car in my section of car park. I had missed the peak breeding period for what I would call the best birds of the Lake District: Pied Flycatcher, Common Redstart and Wood Warbler. I should include Ring Ouzel as well but that wasn't on my list of must see. In fact Redstarts were the easiest to see, a pair were breeding close to our cottage. I saw Pied Flycatchers in several areas of deciduous woodland around the 3 lakes we chose to walk around; Loweswater, Crummock Water and Buttermere. But try as I might I couldn't find any Wood Warblers.
View as we approached our home for the week.
A great spot to enjoy breakfast, lunch and tea
View over Loweswater on our first walk
The birds seem much more approachable here than in London
Pied Wagtail female and male hunting for flies
Lesser Redpoll
I was really pleased when I saw two 4ft long feeders hanging from a tree by the adjoining holiday home across the yard from our accommodation.
Lesser Redpoll and Siskin
Yellow Hammer
Swallow with a white feather that he was proud to show off
Nuthatch in the gutter
Spotted Flycatchers had a nest close by, on our last day the you appeared
Whenever the rabbit hunting Buzzard appeared he was escorted away by crows
Roe Deer encounter early one morning
Willow Warbler's were more numerous than Chiffchaffs
Meadow Pipit
Stonechat
Willow Warbler
Pied Flycatcher's were hard to get close to being high in the canopy
The sound of the Spotted Flycatcher brought back so many happy memories from many years ago.
Pied Wagtail by the waters edge
Common Redstart feeding juvenile by the cottage
The not so crowded beach at St Bee's
Fulmars are one of my favourite seabirds, because they can be found more easily than other seabirds
Breeding Guillemot's look very precarious
Razorbill's seem to prefer their own company
Kittiwake: I was hoping to see more of these than I did, maybe I should have walked slightly further.
Barrel Jellyfish?
Crummock Water and its surroundings. If only I'd taken my camera, juv Wheatears showed really well.
The water in this stream was crystal clear having come straight off the mountain top
I have seen more Black-bellied Dippers in recent years than our. It was good to have remembered the call
Goosander
Red-breasted Merganser
Willow Warbler and one of it's offspring
Buttermere
You can see that we had very little rain, this isn't the liveliest of waterfalls
These Redstart images were the best I could manage. The male's look great no matter how far away they are.
Willow Warbler by the path at Buttermere
Seen from across the valley our cottage is slightly obscured. The walk up a rough track opposite did produce my only Whinchats of the trip. This juvenile got caught in a gust of wind and ended up slightly closer to us.
Stonechat juvenile
Low cloud drifted down the valley on our last evening.
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