Moore surprises

Hi All,

Seeing that it was such a nice morning I had good intentions in getting to Moore before 08:00hrs but by the time i had written and sent off some emails and generally messed about it was 10:30hrs. So i didn't really have any hope in seeing much at all never mind seeing the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.

I parked my car up and walked down lapwing lane popping in at the hide there but there was quite a ripple on the water and not much doing at all besides a few brave and hardy Coots showing.

So carried on down the lane and looked to my left to see four birders with scopes and camera equipment waiting for the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker to show.

I eventually made my way towards them after eating a crunchy nut bar held together with Canadian Maple Syrup. yum!

By this time most of the birders had walked back the way i had just come, so i persevered and just hung about waiting just in case the LSW showed up and decided to continued Fracking in its current nesting hole.

Less spotted- Neil P

While chatting to one birder from Stockport (which by the way had never seen a live LSW in his life), the bird showed and I had to point it out to him. He was so excited at seeing the bird for the first time, and kept on telling me so. I was so pleased for him that he had eventually seen his quarry.       (but For me it was as common as muck by now ... ha! ;-)))

At this point I was sitting down on the side of the path to gain a better (twigless) view of the bird drilling the tree and had taken my quota of photo's and was happy with what I had taken.

So offered my spot to another photographer who was very grateful of the better view of the bird. 

By this time the bird had been there a good 30 minutes happily drilling away and flicking the wood chips onto the ground below. It was well into the tree by the full length of it body with tail included.

From there, i made my way back to the lane and started to chat with one of the locals, when a young Vixen suddenly appeared in the roadway and just stopped in its tracks and looked at us. She had an old war wound floppy ear which was probably sustained in a previous fight.

Knowing that the foxes in the area tend to be quite tame, as the security personnel from a nearby warehouse feed them on scraps of meat from a local butcher and have hand fed the foxes for about eight years now.  

So I gave it a call and a whistle and it came trotting towards us and wandered around our feet sniffing for food.

Vixen  - Moore - Neil P

It was a sweet young female that you wouldn't really associate with it being a total killing machine and you couldn't help but admire and love its clean sleek lines and bushy tail.

I wondered if it would like some of my crunchy nut snack. So as soon as i got the packet out its one and a half ears pricked up at the noisy wrapper and became very interested.

I broke a piece off and threw it to her and she woofed it down licking her lips all the way.

At this point another photographer appeared and was over the moon, as he couldn't  believe his eyes at seeing the fox so close and so tame ... he immediately got onto the floor and was taking photo's of it at eye level. 

Each time I threw a piece of crunchy  nut bar, the Vixen would carry it away into the old Latchford canal undergrowth and ate it then returned for more ... I was rapidly running out of crunchy bar for it, as it must have been really hungry.

Then seeing that it was all gone, she trotted off quite nonchalantly to where the other group of people were who were still watching the LSW. She was obviously hoping that they perhaps would have some more interesting food for her.

When she suddenly appeared by them the lady jumped with sock then realised that it was a tame fox, so relaxed in amazement.

The Vixen came back to me as I put my empty hand out to her so that she could see that I didn't have any more food for her .. She licked my hand and made off to the nearby killing fields.

But what a thrill to be so close to nature and a magnificent friendly beast.

                                 Neil .............