Ring Ouzels Before 'Lockdown'.
21st October 2020
In my previous blog I aired my reservations about visiting the Elan Valley to look for Ring Ouzels and I stand by what I said regarding the hordes of visitors being a problem for a photographer. Disappointingly this week, on Monday to be precise, we received the daunting news that Wales would enter into another full ‘Lockdown’ for two weeks starting this Friday. This started me thinking about trying to go and photograph the Ouzels, but the thought of all the people was still putting me off. However, when I saw the weather forecast for today it was pretty bleak, rain all day, but that wasn’t as bad as you would imagine. It’s no good if you are walking or bird watching because you will get soaking wet, but if you are sat in your vehicle in the dry waiting to take some photographs it’s not bad at all! In addition the rain would put most people off visiting that area, but the birds would still be there.
This made my mind up and I prepared all my gear, made some sandwiches and a flask got up early and Susan and I left a very rainy Brecon Beacons to drive to the Elan Valley. It only took about an hour, and on arriving I was pleased to see quite a good crop of Rowan berries on the trees in the car park. There was no one around, so we quickly set up, I put the Goretex cover over my lens and we got everything into the car. Susan was on the back seat with me in the front passenger seat – the usual setup. The rain was falling steadily and we hoped it would continue for a couple of hours. We didn’t have to wait too long to hear that soft Chuck Chuck of a Ring Ouzel and soon after three or four birds began coming down off the quarry face to feed on the Rowans.
We had great views and I took a few reasonable shots as they flew back and fore amidst the falling rain, but inevitably the odd car came into the car park and the birds retreated back up high on the rocks. The rain started to slacken and we knew this would mean more people and indeed they started to arrive, but it didn’t matter we had achieved what we set out to do. It’s not very often we were thankful for a good old wet Welsh Wednesday, but on this occasion we were!!
This made my mind up and I prepared all my gear, made some sandwiches and a flask got up early and Susan and I left a very rainy Brecon Beacons to drive to the Elan Valley. It only took about an hour, and on arriving I was pleased to see quite a good crop of Rowan berries on the trees in the car park. There was no one around, so we quickly set up, I put the Goretex cover over my lens and we got everything into the car. Susan was on the back seat with me in the front passenger seat – the usual setup. The rain was falling steadily and we hoped it would continue for a couple of hours. We didn’t have to wait too long to hear that soft Chuck Chuck of a Ring Ouzel and soon after three or four birds began coming down off the quarry face to feed on the Rowans.
We had great views and I took a few reasonable shots as they flew back and fore amidst the falling rain, but inevitably the odd car came into the car park and the birds retreated back up high on the rocks. The rain started to slacken and we knew this would mean more people and indeed they started to arrive, but it didn’t matter we had achieved what we set out to do. It’s not very often we were thankful for a good old wet Welsh Wednesday, but on this occasion we were!!