Spot the bird…

Im always amazed by how well birds are able to disappear into their surroundings. Only when you see them in their natural environment can you really appreciate the usefulness of their particular camouflage.

Ive chosen these particular photos as they show a little more of the environment and show how each bird really blends with its surroundings. There is a strong link with the shoreline in these photos as not only do the waders thrive in this area, so do passerines such as the snow bunting and rock pipit.

Davidstow Airfield

So, there I am, driving my car at 5mph around a disused airfield in the middle of bodmin moor. Thats how most interesting stories start right?

I had visited Davidstow airfield before and seen a total of zero birds. This day turned out to be different. My aim was to photograph a buff-breasted sandpiper that had been seen there the day before. Driving around you had to be careful not to drive too close or run over any birds as they dont take any notice of you whilst inside a vehicle. The pictures here were taken out of the open car window with a beanbag resting across the ledge.

I’ve always thought an airfield was an unlikely place to find waders but it proved to be a good place to see them, especially with the car allowing a close approach. There were a large number of ringed plover and dunlin present, but I finally found the buff-breasted sandpiper at the far end of the airfield also. This was definitely mission accomplished, if only all trips ended that way!

First new photos for a while

I haven’t been taking as many photos as usual recently, so thought I would upload a few random pictures I took in the last few weeks.

The first is a swallow in the last light of the day. Finally found a place where they reliably sit for photos and aren’t ten feet above me on a phone wire!

The others are of a kestrel that allowed a close approach from an adjacent cliff at the lizard. It sat for a long time preening then flew down to catch a vole.

Thanks for taking a look.

 

Trip to Florida

Well its been some time since I went on this trip (beginning of may!) but with one thing or another its taken ages to get a trip report online. I managed to see a real range of birds on this trip even though we only went looking for them on about 3 occasions during the trip, I think the final species count was 73 with pretty minimal effort.

Two birds I really wanted to see while in Florida were the snail kite and the Florida scrub jay, which is an endemic species. I managed to photograph them both whilst there and although I was happy with the results I would have liked more time to get a better shot of both.

Another bird I love to see while there is the osprey. They are fairly rare visitors to our shores, only coming to breed in certain locations, but in Florida they seem to be everywhere. Although I saw plenty of fishing by them I wasn’t close enough at any time to get a good shot of it this time. I did however get some in flight shots and one of the osprey post -fishing.

We were lucky to see a group of recently fledged purple martins too. They sat on telephone wires and waited to be fed insects by the parents. They are very fast in flight so it was a challenge to try and get pictures in focus and also to get photos of them feeding the juvenile birds.

Here are just a few of the other bird species I captured whilst around. Pictures are of a blue jay, cattle egret, great blue heron, juvenile limpkin and a tricolor heron.

My favourite shot from the trip however came from an unusual source. We visited a national park on the east coast and found a mudflat with hundreds of waders. One lesser yellowlegs was preening and eventually flapped its wings into mid air then landed again. I happened to be watching it at the time and caught this image.

Thanks for taking a look and as always love to get feedback on my photos so feel free to message me or leave a comment.

Trip to the arctic circle

I took a trip recently to the northernmost points of Finland and Norway. Turns out its pretty cold up there, it dropped to -18c at one point to be exact, but I kind of expected that so was well prepared

It was a predominately nature orientated holiday so we got to see some interesting sights whilst there. As well as the wildlife there was some pretty interesting weather coupled with the bonus of seeing the northern lights.

It really was a beautiful place with some fairly changable weather as seen in these photos. While staying in and travelling around Vardo, on the tip of Norway, the wind blew the snow accross at crazy speeds making it difficult to see anything at all, I’m just glad I wasnt driving.

We also took a trip out into decidedly choppy seas on a less than sturdy boat to a seabird colony. The sea wasnt calm enough to go onto the island itself so we had plenty of time to sway around and try to take pictures without dropping the camera overboard!

The boat can be seen below, along with a couple of the shots whilst aboard. Theres also a picture of the air around the island, showing just how many birds there were filling the sky above us. We also saw two white-tailed eagles soaring above us too, but he was a little smaller in the frame, more of a record shot wih that one.

We saw more birds at a roadside feeding station. In northern scandinavia it was always difficult to find wildlife but once you did they always seemed very confiding with humans, presumably due to the fact that they see very few people when compared to somewhere like the U.K. These a few from that feeding station.

The northern lights’ unexpected appearance was very welcome, the trip organisers had said seeing them was ‘possible’ so I didnt hold out much hope. However on our last night there they appeared. I luckily had my camera but the tripod was still in the hotel. My gloves came off and made a useful stand on the snow. I used the 30 second exposure times to rub my hands together and try to stay warm!

A day at Marazion marsh

I recently took a trip to Marazion marsh to attempt some photography. Amid all the snow storms and flash floods it was a surprisingly good day in terms of weather. We didnt have many hours of daylight to use but we still managed to see plenty of wildlife.

When we first arrived we spotted this pretty dirty looking herring gull. It looked like it had been in the wars, I’m hoping im wrong but it did look a lot like oil on his feathers.

The common snipe, which are normally a speck in the distance, are much more obliging at marazion, wandering close to the perimeter wall for photo opportunities.

Whilst there we also saw plenty of bittern activity, most people around here believe there to be around 6 or more in the area during this cold spell. Catching their speedy flights across the marsh wasnt an easy task however. I plan to spend a little longer there at some point to try and get some better shots.

We also saw a kingfisher getting some lunch, in the form of a small fish The photo is a crop as he was sitting some way away.

With the sun starting to set we moved to the beach area where we found a black redstart. Unfortunately I’d previously been photographing the kingfisher so still had the teleconverter fitted. Due to this the focusing was seriously limited. I did manage a shot as it flew away, showing the characteristic red on its tail as shown here.

On the way back to the car we stopped for a last look at the marsh and were glad we did. We had long views of the water rail running from bush to bush. With light now fading the ISO had to be pushed right up just to get a sharp shot but it was a great experience to see him out of water and running around.

Comments appreciated as always, thanks for looking. Tom.

Interesting birds seen on my travels

Whilst out photographing the cornish wildlife I also get to see some fairly special birdlife. Recently Ive been lucky enough to see a few birds I’d never seen before.

I went to visit the green heron at the lost gardens of heligan a while ago. Its a  very rare bird and it had people coming from a long way to see it. It was a ten minute drive from the house so I thought I should make the trip

Whilst wandering the shoreline looking for waders to photograph, we found the snow bunting we hoped to bump into whilst there. He stayed around for a long time that day but he was still difficult to photograph with the many dog walkers wandering through!

The purple sandpipers were seen in a similar way, with a walk to find waders in mind. After finding them we got increasing better views allowing us to get fairly close for this photo.

The last picture is not the greatest of quality but it is an exciting bird for me anyway. It was the first firecrest I had seen, it was also found in my garden!

Thanks for taking a look, as always I welcome comments and ideas to improve!
Tom.

Deer, deer everywhere…

I took a trip recently to north norfolk to see the fallow deer. Although they are situated within a deer park theyre anything but easy to photograph. Couple that with gloomy conditions on the day that I visited and it turned into a challenging day.

 

 

 

 

 

With a lot of slow walking, manouvering and generally creeping around like a madman I was able to get progressively closer. These two pictures were taken later when I was using trees within woodland for cover. Obviously from their alert expressions that they noticed me there, but they didnt feel the need to move away & after a few moments they carried on with their foraging.

 

 

 

 

 

Then at the end of the day I managed to capture this guy with a leaf in his mouth

As always I love to hear feedback. Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions on how my photos or site can be improved!

The kestrels of lands end

Whilst visiting lands end & taking a walk along the coastline, we first got a fleeting glimpse of a bird of prey as it swooped across the cliffs. We ‘ sure what it was but after numerous sightings later in the day ‘ pretty sure it was a kestrel. We watched these beautiful birds looking for prey all along the coast that day. We saw a male and a juvenile bird in different places. We even saw them together on a rock at one point, unfortunately they were about 100 metres away so I ‘ have a chance of getting a photo of that. I did manage to get a shot of the juvenile on its own later on however.

After that we also caught up with the adult male. Viewing these birds in this habitat really made the trip worthwhile. This was the day after me having a conversation saying that I hadn’t seen any kestrels in Cornwall since moving down here!

A nest of swallows

I only just got around to processing some pictures from back in june, i need to stop working so hard, or just stop being lazy im not sure which it is. Whilst visiting ‘lizard point’, the most southerly point in england, I happened upon a nest of swallows. After waiting for a long time to make sure the parents were ok with us being there, I got a few pictures of them coming into feed the chicks.

The nest was located in the rafters of an old abondoned building with no window panes, looking directly out onto the sea. It was pretty dark in there so I had to resort to using flash, but it allowed fast shutter speeds to freeze the wing beats of the parent bird. These parent birds would swoop through the window with beaks full of bugs for the chicks, only staying on the nest for a matter of seconds before going out to find more food. It made capturing the moment they were fed challenging.