A beautiful sunny day all day today made a nice change although it remained windy and cold .  I have been hoping to get some more pictures of the glossy ibis in sunshine and they have been showing reliably at Catcott Lows reserve on the Somerset Levels for weeks now.  They have generally been fairly easy to get close to but today proved to be an exception.  As I sat in my car watching their favourite spots, the stonechat  shown left made an appearance on the gate to the field near the entrance to the reserve.  He had obviiously found a good source of food as he kept hopping down into the field and catching things and bringing them back onto the top of the gate.

Unfortunately I was just a little too slow with the camera to catch him with a loaded beak - next time maybe.  More larger shots of this stonechat and others here.

The ducks seen from the main hide looked really gorgeous in the late afternoon light and, for a change, came pretty close to the hide.  The female pictured to the right gave a good show with a wing stretch right on cue.  However, the shovelers which are normally a little more reticent, came even closer to the hide today and I got some of my best ever shots of males in various versions of plumage.  Larger pictures can be seen on the various species pages for wigeon and northern shoveler.

Perhaps the star photo of the day for me was a completely unexpected one.  As I arrived in the car park by the hide I saw that something above the hide was creating interest.  I leapt out with my camera and managed to catch a picture of a buzzard flying through a flock of wigeon.  It's not a great quality photo but I find it hard to believe that I'll get a similar shot any time soon.

Distant views of the ibis were on view all afternoon but apart from some distant flight shots, they decided not to pose for the camera today.  Another time perhaps.