Du Rose's Digest

local goodies

2011-07-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

red-footed falcon at Hornsey

I have been looking for a doable kingfishers for a while. I managed a handful of shots before the fishing season started and they disappeared due to disturbance.

Local marsh warbler giving pretty decent views a couple of weeks ago

garden dragonflies

2011-07-04T15:52:00.001-07:00

white-throated robin

2011-06-09T02:21:00.000-07:00

The owl and the pussycat

2011-05-03T15:44:00.000-07:00

Just back from sweden, two highlights from the trip.......

Gulls at Roys of Wroxham during the eclipse

2011-01-04T15:04:00.000-08:00

Eclipse sunrise

2011-01-04T14:25:00.000-08:00

I was lucky, there was a tiny gap in the mostly cloudy horizon at St Bennets Abbey this morning during the solar eclipse.

Red-flanked bluetail

2010-11-20T11:26:00.000-08:00

I almost forgot this one, the Waxham bluetail from back in October.

Turkana Tribe

2010-11-19T16:03:00.000-08:00

During my last couple of visits to Lake Turkana we have made friends with a small group of Turkana people who are living close to where we have been carrying out surveys. At the moment a drought is underway, which means they have to collect water from around 10 miles from their settlement. To save them the two day trip, which consists of one day to walk to the nearest water and one day to walk back to their settlement, we took their water cans back to South Horr and returned them full the following morning.

I'm not sure how they manage such a marathon trek in such heat with so little water, I walked around 1km one day and had to immmediatley drink 3 litres of water!

Turkanas, dont normally like having their photograph taken because they think the photograph is taking their blood away. Providing them with water and a few kilos sugar, which they normally trade for goats persuaded them photography wouldn't harm them. In the end I was inundated with requests to take their photo.

This mum encourages her little girl to drink so she can give us back an empty water container for refill

Turkana women shaing out sugar and tobaco

Heading back to camp

When a baby goat is born the turkanas carry them around for a couple of days until they build up their strength and are able to join the herd.

The Turkanas usually wear sandals made from old tyres, but they often wear nothing on their feet, the ground is littered with sharp stones and thorns and would rip our feet to shreds in a few hours. Visible in the photo of the girl above is the missing bottom two incisors, these are always pulled out in early childhood.

Link to Turkana on Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkana_people

I'm not sure about some of the pictures which I think are of another tribe but the information seems pretty much correct.

Lake Turkana birds

2010-11-19T14:32:00.000-08:00

African white-backed vulture taken by a small colony in the South Horr valley

Buff-crested bustard very common between South Horr and Lake Turkana, it is seldom seen in the open like this one and tend to inhabit semi-wooded habitats on the edge of the desert.

Eastern chanting-goshawk

Lichtenstein's sandgrouse, really hard to find, i only managed to see one group in one week in the desert.

Roller, common in semi-wooded country.

Migrating steppe eagle, one of several seen migrating south during the week.

This Verreaux's eagle-owl was hunting weaver birds every night at South Horr Camp. Picture taken using a torch which it completley ignored and carried on hunting.

More Kenya, Lake Turkana images coming soon

2010-11-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

I have been lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time in in Kenya over the past couple of months, great birds and great people. more pics to come soon. Kori bustard and two Turkana girls.

American flycatcher in Norfolk

2010-09-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

This North American Epidonax flycatcher was present at the end of Blakeney Point this weekend. The jury is still out as too exactly which species is is.

Samburu people

2010-08-24T00:43:00.001-07:00

We stayed in South Horr for a few days, the local tribes are really friendly and as the photos show they wear very colourful clothes and massive necklaces.

Grevy's zebra

2010-08-23T13:21:00.001-07:00

Probably the highlight of my visit to Africa was this pair of Grevy's zebra, this desert species is becoming increasingly rare and there is believed to be only around 2500 left with numbers decreasing rapidly. These fine animals are taller and more graceful than common zebra with much more delicate stripes. The ears are larger and used for signalling as well as listerning in all directions, note one of these is listerning behind while watching us.

2010-08-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

first pic uploaded after 5 attempts!

Africa update

2010-08-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

Having trouble posting pics, so this is a test post featuring the sought after Quail-plover.

Lake Turkana Africa

2010-08-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

I have recently got back from at few days staying near Lake Turkana in Africa, I only had basic camera gear with me but managed a few decent shots. Birds are from top to bottom: Tawny eagle, Somali Courser, Olive thrush, Nubian woodpecker, Kori Bustard, eastern-chanting gosshawk, crowned plover and buff-creasted bustard.

Scarce emerald damselfly

2010-07-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

Numerous in all of the sea-clubrush filled ditches east of Burnham-on-Crouch

Norfolk Hawker

2010-07-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

Norfolk hawker at Strumpshaw Fen, taken with the canon 300mm f4, I really need to get a true macro lens.

Nightjar Norfolk

2010-06-20T03:20:00.000-07:00

I have spent a lot of time in the forests of Norfolk this spring concentrating on getting to know one of my favorite bird the nightjar. Its been productive as I have found five different birds sitting on wood piles. This one is a male, his mate sits on a log a few metres away. Hopefully she will be nesting soon, I was thinking she is a bit late but first egg dates are apparently mid-may to mid-July so there's still plenty of time.

woodcock and Dotterel

2010-06-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

The recent Dotterel at Kessingland. Woodcock over Swaffham Heath.

hobby

2010-05-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

hobby about to stoop on a dragonfly

oriental pratincole in Lincs

2010-05-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

First record for Lincs

Booming Bittern

2010-05-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

A couple of pics of the booming bittern at Minsmere from a couple of weeks ago. it boomed 4 times during one of my recent all day visits. Unfortunatley it never faced the hide whilist booming. On this occaision it was only a few metres from the hide hide, these pics are uncropped with full frame camera.

Lesvos 2010

2010-05-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

Just back from a week in lesbos,i have 50 gig of photos to process, but here is the first one I did, a glossy ibis showing some nice colours.

Teal at Salthouse

2010-02-20T15:11:00.000-08:00

Camargue Feb 2010

2010-02-18T14:34:00.000-08:00

Slender-billed gull, more Camargue pics to come

black kite Gigrin

2010-02-02T15:09:00.000-08:00

fieldfare in my garden

2010-01-15T15:35:00.000-08:00

had 40 fieldfares in the garden but terrible light.

cley birds in the snow

2009-12-22T10:46:00.000-08:00

yellow-crowned night heron

2009-11-27T15:39:00.000-08:00

Fort Desoto Beach Florida

Mediterranean and ring-billed gulls at Rossi's

2009-11-26T15:33:00.000-08:00

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

reddish egret

2009-11-26T15:29:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-19T11:45:00.000-08:00

A bit closer and better light today

Jay and diver

2009-11-18T16:48:00.000-08:00

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.

Bald eagle

2009-10-03T14:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-28T16:07:00.000-07:00

Taking a bath on Fort Myers beach

Farne Islnds puffin

2009-07-01T10:56:00.000-07:00