Mistle Thrush

It's a shame there wasn't sunshine as the views of the mistle thrushes foraging amongst the daisies had real potential. Still nice to see, as was the youngster waiting patiently on the picnic table to be fed.

Incoming ...........

The blog has been fairly quiet recently, but that's because I've been putting a lot of the time I do have into one particular project which I'm not quite ready to reveal yet. As always I keep thinking I can do better, and weather permitting I feel there are some potential improvements to be made on the work so far. So watch this space ............
I did have a change of scene last weekend though, visiting the seaside where I finally got some half-decent shots of a wheatear


and then I had a wander up to the local coppice where the starlings and (I'm sure) the woodpeckers nest. Plenty of likely looking holes, but no sign of any action as yet. I did find a few whitethroat in the local hedges, although the pictures were disappointing. My main camera is out of service at present - hopefully temporarily, just waiting for the quote, bit worried - and with the old 400D, whilst it does the job, the focusing really isn't good against a jumbled background. If you know whitethroats you will be familiar with the territorial flight where the male flies up from the bushes, singing away and then sort of parachutes back down. This one though adopted the lazy approach and just perched on the telephone wires!
And finally a shot taken 50 yards from my house as the sun was going down while the rain clouds rolled in. Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to live where I do, but moments like this remind me. Mind you, you can't see the Council depot 100yards to the left!

Breakfast Bar

I'm sure many of you feed the birds as we do. A wooden arch originally intended as a seat has become the site for our sunflower and nijer seed feeders attracting the usual suspects.
However every so often we have a visitor. He may come most days for a week or more, then, presumably as the birds wise up he disappears for a while. Occasionally he'll catch something from the feeders, but more often it seems to be the slightly dozy bird on it's journey in that will catch his eye .....
Check down ...
to the left ....
straight on ...
to the right ...
up..., hang on
into action ...
I missed the action shot and this time he also missed the great tit, but other times he was more lucky. Kay isn't over happy that the mushroom was doubling as a plucking post, but it makes for good views (if not very good handheld shots in the fading light!).
Then he's off again.
To finish let's remember it's Spring and revel in the sun, the blackthorn in bloom against a cloudless sky and recall the story of the birds and the bees. (What is the story of the birds and bees? No-one ever told me).
I know we shouldn't anthropomorphise, but tell me you can't hear Barry White in the background as this loved up pair rewrite my usual impression of aggressive coots.

Videos

I've posted a couple of short videos on my Vimeo site recently. Taken with a pocket digtal camera Panasonic TZ7 I'm quite pleased with the results, all things considered.

Adder, settling to sleep from Brian's 'Wobblecam' Videos on Vimeo.

Water rail from Brian's 'Wobblecam' Videos on Vimeo.

You Dancing?

At present there seem to be lots of Great Crested Grebes posing nicely for photos showing their famous weed dance. I've seen it a few times - mostly at quite long distance, although once in my fishing days I had a good view at a small reservoir near Warrington. In terms of pictures the smaller the water the better really, as they seem to me to tend to be a bit shy.
After a morning watching the adders in the Forest I moved on to a spot Chris G had mentioned, to see if I could get any views of the grebes, dancing or not. Well it turned out not, but I did get some nice views. As this pair were already nest building and, if you look closely, mating (see below) it may be that they got their bonding out of the way a while ago. Or maybe I just wasn't there at the right time. Still I'm not grumbling, as these are miles and away the best shots of great crested footy arses (for anyone who's been with me from the beginning of the blog!) I've managed so far in my fledgling snappery.
These last few shots have an almost painterly quality. Relatively underexposed there seems to be some noise, as though the ISO setting was much higher than my standard 400.
To round a good day off I went to have a look at a long tailed tit's nest in the failing light. For the first time I used my new remote trigger for the camera, allowing me to sit well away from the nest, but still get some pre-focused shots. The low light means the quality is iffy, but the set-up worked as well as I could have hoped.

As always check the web albums for better quality views

Adder additions

Some more shots of adders enjoying the sun on Sunday as much as I was. There were at least 4 alongside a well trodden path at a nationally known birding site, but most people were completely oblivious to their presence - even to the one with the mountaineering pretensions halfway up a a gorse bush!
Despite the excellent light it proved remarkably tricky to get any decent shots with that wonderful forked tongue protruding.

As always better resolution shots in the web albums - just click the link to the right.

Adders

Still struggling to get some decent adder shots, but these are a step forward at least. As always better views in the web albums, along with some more (and dare I say it better) shots of the water rail.

Never ignore a muddy puddle!

I've posted before about my love of t'internet, and I really do wonder how I ever got by without it in the past. Take this weekend for example. I'd seen some sightings on a website, followed through with pictures from another, googled a venue and directions, checked to see that the weather was cloud heading in from the east and decided to head west into darkest Glamorganshire rather than try for frogs in the forest. I reckon it might still be a bit cool this year for them, but who knows.

Anyway I arrived at the venue and knew where to go from the sightings page. First glance wasn't hugely inspiring - a bit of a muddy puddle. Actually that's not fair, there was an area of mud in the middle of a small pond surrounded by reedmace. No sign of the target, and at first some doubts about where I could go to snap it/them. The pond wasn't very big so a few steps down I was peering into the reeds when a small, skinny chicken like bird shot out the back into the trees. Cursing mildly under my breath I looked again at the pond, the light and found somewhere to tuck in and wait. Shortly two water rails appeared at the back and drifted away again. Fingers crossed. I only ever saw one at any time after that, but the light shone (mostly) for a couple of hours and I got some snaps. At times the rail was so close I couldn't focus, let alone frame it. They are busy birds and many pictures were just a bit blurred even at 1/800th sec, but I was pretty pleased with the views I finally ended up with. Well worth the welly full of water (I didn't go in too deep, but ended up kneeling in the water with one knee for too long. As well as a very chilled knee when I stood up all the water that had wicked into my trousers ran into the boot. Still, I got the angles!).

(Bit frustrated with that last shot. I'd framed the one before to get the reflection but when it moved I didn't reframe enough - it did happen quite quickly - and snipped the crown off the reflection)

As you can see the moorhens eventually plucked up the courage to make an appearance as well.

These pictures are definitely better viewed HERE in the latest pictures album.

Use the slideshow feature for best views.