Another visit to Holy Island - 13th May 2026

It was a very wet morning but, as it was one of the few days that a bus service was running from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Holy, I decided to risk it and go anyway.  It was raining when I arrived, but then the sun came out and it was a lovely day.

Rabbits in a garden not far from the car park

Lovely yellow flowers growing on the side of the wall

Swallows perching on top of gravestones in the churchyard

Statue of St Cuthbert in the churchyard

Black Guillemot in the water in front of St Cuthbert's island - really too far away for my camera

Black Guillemot and a male Eider duck

St Cuthbert's island

Pansies in a small public garden in the village

White Wisteria just starting to bloom

Another wet Pansy

Poppies in front of a hotel

Singing Dunnock

Hens at the farm

Male Reed Bunting near a path leading to the coast

gathering food for his nestlings

Sheep resting on grass just outside the bird hide with the Emanuel monument in the distance

Skylark kindly landed in a nearby field long enough for me to take a photograph

Little Grebe on the water in front of the bird hide

Linnet perching on tall grass

Bunch of pretty Cowslips

Ruined building near the path leading to the beach

Lindisfarne castle in the distance

View from a hilly walk

Meadow Pipit perching on a twig

Buck Roe deer with an itch

He spotted me!

Skylark in a field on my way back to the village

Collared Dove in the hotel yard

The Poppy bud that I photographed when I first arrived on the island had begun to open up by the time I was going back to the car park in order to get the bus at around 17.00

Pretty Poppies

 

Pre Corona virus lockdown visit to Hall Place, Bexley, in early March

In early March, before the Corona Virus lockdown began in the UK, I went out every day with my camera for a week in order to photograph birds in parks while I was still able to travel by public transport.  On one of those days, I took a journey to Hall Place in Bexley, which I suspected would be my last visit for some time - and, unfortunately, it will be.

I was lucky during my time there as hardly any people were around and I had the bird hide to myself for most of my visit.  Also, quite a lot of birds were flittering about.

Viewed from the small bird hide and perching in the trees near the river Cray:

Robin with a few ruffled feathers

Beautiful female Chaffinch

Two Dunnocks playing tag

 Great Tit with seed between it's claws - taken from the nearby bird feeder

To my utmost joy, a Nuthatch graced me with it's presence

A Grey Wagtail was searching for insects in the shallow water of the small river that runs through the site

During a walk through the gardens, I saw a juvenile cygnet on the river

A Blue Tit flew onto the branch of a conifer

A Blackbird was searching for worms amongst the fallen twigs from previous strong winds

Back at the bird hide, a Collared Dove showed me some pretty feathers

and a naughty Rose-ringed Parakeet stared at me from a hole that was made last year in the tree by a pair of Green Woodpeckers

It is a very unsettling time and I am sad that I am unable to visit again during the warmer weather - but at least I have photographic memories to look at and cheer me up during the days spent at home during this horrific world-wide crisis.