** Knole Park, Sevenoaks, Kent.**

As Knole Park seems to be the place to visit lately, after reading that Greenie went there, closely followed by Phil, I thought it was time I paid my 1st visit, so at 10am Pam, and I made our way there. Once there straight away we saw Fallow Deer just by the track. Greenie gave me some idea as to where to wander, so once parked we took a walk around. I was hoping that they would be tame enough to get pretty close seeing as they must be use to cars, and people, and I was right. In fact at one time after we had had lunch I went back for a walk on my own, and I came across a stag, it had one antler larger than the other and it let me get quite close, I had taken some food for them this time, so I started throwing it towards him, he came closer and ate it, so I thought, ok I will try a bit closer, I did this and he came closer. Now I was going to tempt fate, I put some feed in the palm of my hand, and stood there, he looked at me, then he walked up to me and took it, so I gave him some more. He was quite happy to be fed in this way, at one point he was trying to get at my pocket  for it before I could get it out. he was that close I held my compact digital camera out in my left hand to take a photo of him eating from my hand. There is a photo below.

After this I took a wander about, that was when I saw some Sika Deer lying in and around the bracken. I was able to take a few photo's, but I don't think one of the stags thought much of my photography, I think you can see what he thought of it!  See below.

Below is a further couple of photo's of Sika's.

Below is a assortment of Fallow Deer photo's that I took on my walk about..

The stag above was bellowing, and dashing around by a small heard of females, chasing off a stag Sika Deer that came close.
The final photo below is different. I was reading in a photography magazine about blurred action shots. There was one in it of a bird dashing about on the ground, and the photographer took this shot of it out of focus, which is meant to give the appearance of quick motion, so I thought I would try to apply it to a stag Fallow Deer that I saw running. Now it won't be everybodies cup of tea, but I like it, simply because it is different.

As for the other wildlife, there was plenty of Squirrel's running around everywhere, some hiding their nuts, other's dashing up and down tree's, but none of them would pose for me.
As for birds, I heard many, saw very few. This could be because there was a lot of families here today, seeing as it is half term, plus it was a nice day.
Still, I came to see the deer, and I wasn't disappointed. Pam and I will definately come again. Pam's highlight of the day was while she was sitting on a log waiting for me, 2 Fallow Deer stags came to within 6 feet of where she was sitting.

** New Garden Bird, Albeit Short And Sweet.**

This afternoon I spent some time watching the garden birds, at first I was seeing the usual species. I took a break, and when I went back for a second look later in the afternoon a small bird caught my eye on top of the peanut feeder. It landed on one of the feeding ports when a Starling flew in and scared it off into a bush before it daparted, but at least it stayed long enough for me to identify it, it turned out to be a  Coal Tit.
I was so pleased to be able to add a new species to my garden life list. That bought my garden life list to 60 species, and my garden year list to 40.

** Dungeness RSPB Reserve. Wednesday 20th October **

For certain reasons I have not been blogging for a while, and for those of you whose Blog I haven't been reading and commenting lately, I apologize.
For the first time in a few weeks Pam, and I went to Dungeness RSPB Reserve. It was a glorious day, albeit cold and windy, but at least the sun was shining bright all day. The first good bird of the day I saw was a Common Buzzard, and that was over the M20 motorway at junction 9. soaring in the big blue sky.
From there we headed towards Brooklands, and turned off at the Woolpack Inn, anf took the back lanes through to Lydd. Enroute,we did see was a flock of 27 Mute Swan's grazing, also before you get to the first right turn to Lydd there is a cottage on the right near the road with a big metal  farm gate, and behind the gate to the left is a row of about 5-6 feeders, and there was some birds feeding on those, they was Blue Tit's, Great Tit's, Greenfinch's, Goldfinch's, but the highlight was watching 7 Tree Sparrow's. I have seen them there before so it as always worth looking for them in that area.
Then about a mile further on we had a Rabbit run across the road in front of us going as fast as it's legs would carry it, then we found out why, there was a Stoat charging after it, the Stoat saw us at the last minute, and it actually skidded to a halt and did a one eighty, back to where it came from. Rabbit 1, Stoat 0.
As we aproached Lydd we stopped next to a field where there was 3 Green Woodpecker's having a good feed in the nice lush grass. Then in the tree's at the back of the field was a flock of 32 Fieldfare, and 11 Redwing.
Once at the RSPB Centre we went around to Scott Hide where it was fairly quiet, so I went back to the Firth Hide. There was more wildfowl here, and the increase of ducks was noticable, especially Wigeon and Pintail, but everything was greatly outnumbered by Coot's, they was everywhere. There was one bird that I picked out in the scope, and that was a Great White Egret. It wasn't actually on Burrows Pit, it was on the New Diggings Pit. It had been seen there for a few days, it seems to like it there. There has also been a Black Throated Diver there, but it wasn't seen today. I also checked from the road at the end of the day, but still I never found the Diver. A full list of species seen will be listed at the end.
Before going over the road to the ARC Pits I paid a visit to the Denge Marsh Hide. There wasn't anything outstanding seen apart from a Common Buzzard passing through, along with 3 Swallows.
Heading back down the track to leave this part of the reserve I did see 4 Marsh Harriers, 3 over the reeds near Hookers, and 1 in the direction on the centre. 2 Fieldfare , and 4 Ruddy Ducks( they should keep their heads down then maybe they will escape the next cull (after all they are a nice looking bird, also I personally don't agree with it)
Once in the Hanson Hide it started to get colder, and a slight increase in the wind(am I glad I had lots of layers on), but even so I did give the pit a good scan, and I picked out 2 Goldeneye, albeit females, plau a solitary Black Tailed Godwit. 10 Swallow went through along with 1 Green Woodpecker. Apart from the usual birds the only other birds I saw was 5 Little Egret  feeding together at one point.
So after a 3 hour visit, I was pleased to have seen what I did. but if I had  more I would like to have gone up the front to do a bit of sea watching but it wasn't to be. Anyway below is a list of birds seen.
Black Headed Gull
Blackbird
Black Tailed Godwit.
Blue Tit
Chaffinch
Common Buzzard
Collared Dove
Cormorant
Canada Geese
Coot
Common Gull
Carrion Crow
Dabchick
Fieldfare
Goldeneye
Gadwall
Great Crested Grebe
Grey Heron
Greenfinch
Goldfinch
Greylag Geese
Great Black backed Gull
Great White Egret
Green Woodpecker
Herring Gull
House Sparrow
Jackdaw
Kestrel
Lesser Blacked Backed Gull
Lapwing
Little Egret
Mute Swan
Moorhen
Mallard
Magpie
Marsh Harrier
Pied Wagtail
Pintail
Pochard
Rook
Ruddy Duck
Redwing
Swallow
Starling
Shoveler
Teal
Tufted Duck
Tree Sparrow
Wigeon
Wood Pigeon

My 'Bird Of The Day is * Tree Sparrow.* (because of their scarcity.)

** Pensthorpe Nature Reserve, Norfolk.**

Pam and I had a few days away last week near Great Yarmouth, and as Thursday was to be the best day, we decided to have a run up to Pensthorpe Nature Reserve, at Fakenham where they film Springwatch, and Autumnwatch.
It is quite a big place, plenty of walks, bird hides etc, along with  wildfowl from around the world. I took a lot of photo's, as you do, some quite close, some not so close. So as sample I have posted a few of them.I did look for Common Cranes in the fields on the way there in some of the usual areas where I have seen them before, but to no avail. It was a bit like looking for a Bittern in a reed bed. For a big bird they are not easy to find, but we didi actually see 4 in one of the fields at the back of the reserve, near one of the scrapes.Some of the following photo's was taken with the light in front of me as it wasn't always possible to shoot with the sun behind me. 
                                                        White Stork

                                                     
                                                            
                                                   Black Stork.

                                                Marabou Stork.

                                                      Blue Crane.

                                                 White Naped Crane.

                                                Common Crane.

                       The 2 Common Crane's above was a distant shot.

                                                  Scarlet Ibis.

                                                  Bald Ibis.

                                                Red Breasted Goose.

Red Breasted Merganser.

                                                   
                                                  Puna Teal.

Rosy Billed Pochard.

Southern Black Bellied Whistling Duck.

Hooded Merganser.

                                                   Swan Goose.

                                                        
                                     
                                                 Ruddy Shelduck.

 There is 2 extra photo's here, one is of the sun and clouds, and the other is a fungi which I have yet to look up it's name.

I now know the fungi below to be called a Birch Polypore-Piptoporus betulinus. With thanks to Greenie and his  knowledge

I could have added others but It was difficult to decide which ones to pick.

Also while in Norfolk I saw many different skeins of Pink Footed Geese arriving in numbers of anything from 50 to a few hundred.