Monday, June 20, 2016

The canary and the mine

A flying trip to Kay's home village in South Yorkshire found me up on the landscaped spoil tip from the old colliery.  The colliery itself closed 25 years ago, and much of the land is now a housing estate overlooked by the tip.  A previous visit had led to some distant views of yellowhammer, so I wanted to see if they were still around.

In fact there were at least 4 territories, probably more, and with the hawthorn still in blossom I hoped I might get some decent snaps.  In truth the light didn't really play ball, and their habit of perching high up meant most of the shots became high key images.  I would have ramped up the exposure even more but the white blossom needed to show.  The pinker tinged flowers looked better, but I would have loved some blue sky for at least a few shots.
As I said in the last post I did find a bush with a nest, but didn't go poking around, just took the chance to get a couple of snaps of the female bringing in some food.  She seemed to be finding moths mainly.
It was a real treat to see the yellowhammers as I never seem to see any near home.

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