Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Long-eared Owl babes

cracking birds and the first broods I have seen for some years -- most vole eaters seem to be doing well this year -- got some recordings of the juvs and female to upload later





Monday, May 26, 2014

Black Stork in Lincs

my planning is often a bit wayward -- hence today I was in the area where the Black Stork was seen earlier last week when I got a message that it was south of Goole and clearly heading for the Humber where I should have been! 20 minutes jog back to the car and 55 miles of bank holiday traffic did not bode well for a successful twitch; but the journey was not too bad and soonish I was south of Crowle being kept informed of the Stork's movements by Tom Lowe (very grateful Tom!) ND and I were though it seemed one step behind the stork as it emerged it was now north of Crowle and it is not the easiest of places to navigate but 8 mins later I was on the road north of Crowle and scanning - seeing a flock of LBBGulls, surely mobbing the stork but no; Tom said it was very high and heading due east over Crowle -- a frustrating what seemed like eternity but probably only a minute or two of scanning and seeing only swifts, innumerable swear words to have come this close and still missed it and then I turned round and looked up and there it was coming straight down the road towards me; at the same time ND rang to say he had picked it up from the Crowle Waste road -- grab the camera still with 2x converter on the 500 after doing some raptors so not ideal and too much of  panic to change anything so just blast then watch as it soared right over my head before heading off east towards Keadby Power Station - one Lincs tick -- strewth if that Slender-billed Gull moves west I may be off again!!!
Rubbish images by the way bright white sky and wrong exposure but it is the bird






Thursday, May 22, 2014

Marsh Warbler







while looking for a Black Stork, failed, in Lincs last night suddenly heard a singing Marsh Warbler - a nice surprise; difficult recording with a lot of various background noise and very poor images as it was 21:00 with the sun behind a cloud and 2000 ISO
Note the location on the recordings is a general one to protect a potential breeding bird and is not the exact location of the bird












Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Terek Sandpiper

first images -- lots of course look very similar --



















Terek first shot of the morning

superb Terek Sandpiper at Covenham Reservoir -- looks like I somehow took 547 photos but I am guessing 500 are maybe rubbish - this was the first one I took -- best light is always early am - plenty of sorting to be done

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Red-necked Phalarope

an impossible location for photos; up above the bird strong side lighting, bird never that close but splendid through the scope