Wednesday, 26 January 2011

Welcome to my new blog: Watching Bingley Birds

As you will gather, I am a keen birdwatching and photographer.  I prefer water birds and am lucky enough to live near the Leeds to Liverpool canal, near Bingley in West Yorkshire, England. 

This year I plan to document in words and photographs the wonderful array of birds in this part of the world.  I am particularly interested in bird behaviour so I hope I can capture the essense of what makes these creatures tick.

To start I need to introduce you to my neighbourhood.  There are three main areas I tend to go to most around here:

The Leeds to Liverpool canal at the bottom of my road - this is a stretch less than two miles long but teeming with life.  For me it starts at the top of the Five Rise Locks at Bingley.  This is a series of locks that raise and lower barges and canal boats.  Yorkshire is hilly - and the canal was a major feat of engineering in tackling how to get these heavy industrial boats up and down the hills.  You can read more about the canal in my lens on Squidoo -  Walking the Towpath
This stretch of canal is the most important for me but I do visit other stretches of the canal so will include sightings along there from time to time.

Coppice Pond on the St Ives Estate, Bingley - this is a large estate near Bingley that is now open to the public.  On part of it is the Coppice Pond, home to a large flock of Canada geese as well as coots, moorhens and so on.  The ranger has set up a feeding station for woodland birds so I often go up to watch them and the squirrels.

Myrtle Park in the centre of Bingley - this public park has the Aire River running through it.  So far I haven't studied the wildlife there much but mean to rectify that this year.



I spend most of my time at the canal.  Last year I was lucky enough to follow several wildfowl families through the breeding season with all the ups and downs that entailed.  I produced several small photobooks of their stories on Blurb.com and make several lenses on Squidoo.  This year, I mean to do even better and this blog is the start.  Part of it will be a diary in words and pictures, and part will be articles on the various birds I come across.  I may even throw in a little history now and then!

You can find the complete list of my storybook photography lenses that cover last year's stories of my favourite wildfowl families CLICK HERE - on Squidoo



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