black kite Gigrin

Gigrin Farm

I was waiting a couple of weeks for the forecasters to predict a sunny day at Gigrin before I risked a trip. The weather actually turned out better than predicted with almost continous sunshine. its a great place to photograph red kites and I'm definatley going back for more.

fieldfare in my garden

had 40 fieldfares in the garden but terrible light.

cley birds in the snow

yellow-crowned night heron

Fort Desoto Beach Florida

Mediterranean and ring-billed gulls at Rossi's

Easy to photograph but hard to get a decent background on these.

reddish egret

Still going through some of my Florida images and posted this one on birdguides and it looked terrible, checking to see if its as bad here.

Ring-necked duck

A bit closer and better light today

Jay and diver

As I said I've been out a couple of times since the move, here is a acoron collecting jay i found near great Yarmouth and this red-throated diver which I found fishing on the tideline at Salthouse, I followed it for about half a mile but sttruggled to keep up with it of it, eventually I got too tired to follow it any further.

Back on line

After moving to Norfolk at last my fist post. I can't believe how long its taken to get connected to the internet, I think its nearly four weeks and thats with a perfectly good working phone line, I cant imagine how long it would have taken if it had involved more than activating a line.

Alhough I have been to north Norfolk with the camera a couple of times today was the first visit to my local Norfolk broad which is only about five minutes from the house. There were a lot of gulls present when I got there about 3pm and I soon spotted an adult med gull amoungst the raft of black-heads. There was also a group of about 150 tufted duck with a scattering of pochard. I did a bit of a scan but didn't manage to pick anything out. I carried on sifting through the gulls when something scared all of the TD's out from under the overhanging trees, to my suprise this female ring-necked duck came into view. Well not exactly into view as it was about 350m away and it was getting pretty gloomy by this point. I'm off back at the weekend when I hope the duck will join some of the TD's which appear to like to feed right in front of the car park....

Bald eagle

This Bald eagle was attracted to tern and pelican activity attracted to a school of fish. This osprey made quite a determined attack as you can see.

black skimmer

Taking a bath on Fort Myers beach

Florida pics coming soon

Black tern at Welland bank Pits

One of five black terns present at Welland Bank last Sunday.

spoonbill snacker

Snacking on a ten-spined stickleback.

cley spoonbills

last Saturday was pretty good at cley for photograping spoonbills with birds coming quite close to the hides from time to time.

Recent selection

A couple of shots from lesbos which I've only just got round to processing. Click the Scops owl and you will see wy its one of my favorite birds - just amazing plumage.

The Polecat taken at the buckinghamshire breeding site after a long waitn and the nightjar at Humberhead Peatlands.

Marsh harrier family

Fens barn owl and banded demoselle

Before next summmer I'm going to have to get a macro lens for insects but for now the Canon f4, 300mm does the business for large butterflies and dragonflies.

A couple of Farne Islands and local pics

Farne Islnds puffin

A few recent flight shots

Rock dove and Gannet at Bempton Cliffs , the Hobby at Lakenheath the rest locally in Cambridgeshire. The young crow ventured a little too close to the peregrines young and nearly paid the price. Luckily it just managed to present its feet to the stooping falcon which as you can nearly pulled its legs off with brute force. The peregrine then released it and went up for another stoop which the badly shaken crow managed to evade by scrambling into some bushes. Click photos for larger images.

More Lesbos

A few more shots from kalloni saltpans - what a fantastic place for photography.

wood sandpiper kalloni saltpans

Several hundred were around the saltpans while we were there. At one stage I saw a flock of 300 individuals!

Black-winged stilt Lesbos

Lesbos first batch

I have only managed to process around 15% of my Lesbos shots; here are a few examples of what I've found so far. Don't forget you can duble click for a closer look.

Lesbos shots coming soon

Cley birds

For various reasons I haven't has much chance to take any photos over the last few weeks so here are a few shots from Cley from a few weeks ago.

Cornwall

Barn owl and black-necked grebe

An afternoon at the feeders

Extremadura

This is the forth year running that i have had a week photographing in Extremadura. Here is a selection of shots from the first couple of memory cards that I have had chance to process.

Claws

Now this short-eared owl seems to have disapeared its safe to post some of the better shots I got.

After numerous visits this winter this bittern finally showed right in front of the hide. Dont forget click images for a closer look.

Woodwalton Fen

My first visit to Woodwalton fen for a while, as well two Marsh harriers, which joined the crows to drive off this escaped Harris's hawk I saw 2 cranes, a hen harrier, Cettis warbler, little egret and two cranes in just two hours at the north end of the reserve.

Norfolk goodies

Short-eared owl top up

Good news, After talking to locals it seems now that the killing of one of these owls by a falconer was accidental and not intentional.

Short-eared owl

Dipper

I still have work to do on these chaps.

More short-eared owl action

Click on images for a closer look.

Night heron Hythe

As the name suggests it ipent most of its time asleep but eventually woke up and gave a little show.

Short-eared owl

At last I have found an approachable one.

Three owl evening

Bad light as usual.

Local mergansers and red kite

These red-breasted mergansers have been present on the River Welland near Crowland for a couple of months now. Red Kite near Kingscliffe.

Additional Norfolk shots

Soft targets......Its like going to the zoo in north Norfolk!

Results of new camera settings

I have just tweeked my camera focus sensitivity settings on the 1Ds, I like the results. All shots handheld with canon 500mm f4 lens.

Caspian gull

A really gloomy day despite another promise from the weather forecasters predicting a sunny day. For some reason the forecasters were insisting it was sunny in East Anglia all day, that was completely untrue. Luckily I resorted to the only sure method these days, look out of the window and then make plans. Due to the lack of sun for photography I decided to take a look at Dogsthorpe tip for gulls. Still no white-winged gulls there this winter but I managed an adult Mediterranean gull and this classic plumaged first winter Caspian gull.

tufted ducks

Norfolk soft targets on ice

I spent a couple of hours in Norfolk the other day..... wow birds are just so abundant and ridiculously tame compared to inland counties. Click on images for a close look.

Christmas short-eared owl

I placed this post in a field used by a short-eared owl a month or so ago. The next stage is to move it a bit closer.

Pics from a sunny afternoon

For a change it was sunny the other afternoon and I took the opertunity to put my newly aquired 1Ds mk2 through its paces. Well my conclusion is the 40D is a toy compared to the 1DS with virtually every flight shot in critical focus compared to perhaps 1 in 10 for the 40D. The full-frame 17 million pixel sensor really helps with cropability too. Awsome.

frozen out coot

Seaton Carew birds

waxwings at Lincoln

For something different I decided to go for flightshots rather than the usual boring perched shots of these beautiful birds.

Camera settings for photography geeks were: Focus mode-one shot with all focus points activated. Manual exposure. Raw image with canon 20D, canon 400mm f5.6 prime lens (non-IS).

Steppe grey shrike again

short-eared owls back for the winter

another shrike shot

Steppe grey shrike

Tame but people getting in the way of the photographers.

At last easterly winds on the east coast

Slow worm and friends

Green Heron etc.

Kites

First time out with the 500 f4 lens and fairly pleased with the results. In the end I may have done better with the 400, as the kites were very confiding and I ended up with too much power resulting in missed wing tips.

black-headed and herring gulls

I have had no chance of unleashing my new 500 lens yet as all of the interesting birds keep disappearing before I get there. So this weekend I had to make do with couple common species close to home to keep the shutter moving and the 400 f5.6 dust free.

back on the barn owls

Short-toed eagle Tarifa

Red-necked Phalarope in evening light

tarifa 2

glossy ibis at La Janda


Egyptian vulture near Tarifa


Short-toed eagle La Janda

Tarifa, Spain

violet dropwing

short-toed eagle

Montagu's harrier at La Janda Windfarm

Honey buzzard

Griffon vulture

Black-necked grebe

tanager and godwit

Not had chance to get out lately but here is a couple of fairly recent shots. Scarlet tanager at Point Pelee and odgit at Nene Washes

Spring selection

Extremadura1

At last time to post a few shots from Extremadura, enjoy.

Still to come - Sweden Extremadura and Point Pelee

Pic taken with point & shoot camera!

Owls galore

I particually like this one, barn owl at sunrise.



I had my camera on the wrong setting for this one, normally 1/80 of a sec wouldn't be enough, somehow the camera must have moved in exactly the same direction as the owl. Everything other than the bird has camera shake, the bird is strangey sharp.

Pelee September 07 selection reposted

Bird of prey assortment

Barn owl Thornham Norfolk

Barn owl Thornham norfolk

Short-eared owl South Lincolnshire

Short-eared owl South Lincolnshire

Short-eared owl North Lincolnshire

Kestrel North Lincolnshire, all clickable.

Norfolk weekend

As usual everything was extremely tame in Norfolk. This bittern was an incredible sight when it caught this water shrew less than 5 metres from the assembled crowd of photographers on Beeston Common.

The teal is a hybird green-winged(American) x Eurasian teal, as it has both vertical and horizontal white stripes in its flanks, both stripes are noticably less bold than is usual for these two species.

More owls

No doubt more barn owl pictures to come. Click for bigger images.

Barn owl at Crowland Water Tower

Lots of owls short-eared and barn owls tonight, this was the best shot of the day.

Two barn owls at Crowland

First time I have managed to get two hunting barn owls in the same picture.

More Camargue Pics

Camargue Feb 2008

UK 2007 selection

Finland Feb 2007

Cornwall March 2007

Canada Septemer 2007selection

American bittern

belted kingfisher

Bitterns

Reposting Pic

Due to transfering my pictures to another server my previous post have dematerialised. I am posting a few back up with a few additions along the way. Normal service will resume shortly.

Camargue March 2006