Early Morning Walk at Ladybower Reservoir

I have an annoying FLU since 2-3 weeks back so I haven't really been able to cope with strenuous walking or biking to my usual photo locations.
So early one morning, I had the good fortune that I got a ride to Ladybower Reservoir, to be there before the sun came up. I've only been there once so early in the morning and this morning I went to a small beech forest and hoped for nice autumn colors. Once on site I realised that it was not as I expected. The nice summer we had has postponed everything, not that I'm complaining :) 
Walking out there is anyway always nice and I was joined by 4 - 5 hooting tawny owls and once it brightened properly, I saw about 30 Mandarin ducks which was a bit surprising, did not know they every landed there. 
The sun began to rise over the hills and was shining nicely on to the other side where there is little larch forest. I took some pictures and just enjoyed the nice weather. After an hour, the light began to be pretty harsh and flat so I started walking back towards the bus but as usual had many stops along the way.

Early Morning

At 04.00 I got up, dressed, put me on the bike and rode towards Redmires reservoars.
The reason was that I wanted to photograph the Golden plower in the first light, well up in Redmires I went to the place where they usually tend to stick to.
I lay down at the edge of the heather, and covered me with camouflage, then it was only to wait for the birds. But unfortunately the birds didnt show upp this morning.
So after 1.5h I gave up because I thought the light was already too hard, so I went back to the reservoars instead and tried to shoot something there.
It was quite a lot of movement but because I just walked around, it is difficult to get as close I want to the wildlife.
But I managed to get pretty close to a Mistle Thrush which has never happened before. It looked pretty worn out and I guess they are busy with the young ones right now, there were many birds that looked worn out.
I also heard that the Tawny Owl was active even though it was rather late this morning so I tried to sneak up on it which was not going well, it flew away to a safer place.
But one bird I was amazed to see and it was a bullfinch they are in the area but is not very common, unfortunately, long distance and manual focus, which is not any really good. Well it was nice to get out the early morning despite the fiasco with Golden plower.

Here are some pics from this morning:

Nice red color in the morning sun

Cotton grass early in the morning

Grey Wagtail/Forsärla

Mistle thrush/Dubbeltrast

Cute white rabbit

Bullfinch/Domherre sitting in the dark forest

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker/Mindre hackspett

Early morning at Redmires

Couple of days ago, I was away up to Redmires reservoars an early morning.
I had read on the Sheffield bird study group that the cuckoo had been heard there and since I've been waiting for it to appear, I neeeded to go there.
Why early morning then, well, it is most active then and it's easier to get close to it because it searches for food on the ground.
So if you are lucky then you can try to plan how it will fly around the area to seek food and wait for it in one place, but unfortunately,  this morning it didn't seek for food :(
I guess it's because it can not hide among the small trees up on moorland because there are no leaves on the trees yet.
So it's probably a little timid still, it is only the male in place so far, but the female will probably get there aany day..
So I had to go and shoot some other stuff instead, it was full activity in the fields and forests.
Pheasent's were arguing with each other, rabbits running around, and the birds was singing. It's really great to be out early in the morning when everything wakes up.

Red grouse enjoying the morning sun

Lapwings playing

Karate Pheasant

Little wild rabbit

Meadow pipit