Winter visitors to our garden

The redwing and the pied wagtail have been regular visitors to our town garden for the past three days, the redwing was a new species for our garden (40th) but it has obstinately refused to pose for the camera, with this poor effort being my best but I will update it if given the chance.

Coal tits

They posed quite nicely whilst I photographed them from the relative comfort of my car (it was a freezing cold day)

Nuthatch

Pictured in some mid winter sun.

Waxwings

I just cannot resist taking pictures of these, surely the most photogenic winter visitor to our shores

Winter evening

The bottom image is a female blackbird filling up on Yew berries for the long winters night and the top one is taken against the late winter sun

Grey partridge

Taken today in the Sandon area, I have seen a very healthy population of these in recent weeks, let us hope that they evade the guns....................

Merlin

A trip to the Sandon area this afternoon brought the bonus of a merlin but too far off for a picture but great to see nonetheless. Also observed buzzard catching a corn bunting and red kites. A flock of 100 fieldfares also passed by

Redshank

I seem to have been lucky in my pursuit of pictures of these waders, and laying by the pools at Salhouse beach early one morning I came up trumps again. redshanks seem to ignore you if you are prone and do not make any sudden movements and this bird walked up so close that I was unable to focus on it. The turnstones were equally as confiding and I have plans for the spring at another location where I believe that I can obtain similar pictures of other wader species.

Turnstone

This picture was also obtained as a result of laying on the shingle next to a pool at Salthouse for an hour and a half. A few species will ignore you if you are laying down and a group of four turnstones walked past me no more that five feet away. The early morning light was superb

Pochard

This fine male was at Lackford lakes which I visited on my way back from an enjoyable four days in Norfolk

Pied wagtail

Two interesting pictures, the first was taken at Lackford lakes and shows interesting colouration and the second was taken at Welney and shows how adept wagtails are at providing for their chicks

Red breasted flycatcher

This proved to be a very elusive and difficult bird to photograph,spending a lot of time high in the trees or back from the path, however I am reasonably happy with the results, the yellow browed warbler pictures all proved to be blurred due to the poor light. It was a very cold day at Holkham woods but I did not really notice it as there was so much to see with lots of goldcrests migrating through and tit flocks to be checked out in case they had anything interesting accompanying them

Utah revisited

I took another look at some pictures I took in Utah on a digiscoping family holiday, I have got some better software and was able to turn three very 'murky' pictures into quite passable images.

The scene is of the Green river entering the top end of the grand canyon in Southern Utah at a nature reserve called Dead horse point and as you can see it was absolutely spectacular.

The killdeer (named after its call) was busy trying to make a nest in the middle of an approach road to a nature reserve that could only have ended in disaster, the heat haze that is visible is indicative of how hot it was (it is not a blurred pic), I imagine that incubation would have been to keep the eggs cool instead of warming them up here!

The final picture is of a grasshopper sparrow, typically a skulker and hard to see, it obliged us by popping up in the grass nearby and giving us the full rendition of its song.

Stonechat

A trip to Yorkshire to see a friend led to this stonechat pic at Spurn nature reserve, it is a shame it was not inside the frame ...... but if you look carefully it is taken up with a spiders web.

Sandon hills

I went here to check out the raptors that seem to love this area and was rewarded with a hen harrier being mobbed by a raven which did not give in easily and the harrier was chased all over the fields with a following murder of crows that seemed to be enjoying the spectacle, the harrier appeared to be a juvenile but it was quite distant and hard to age positively. Also there were large numbers of meadow pipits gleaning over the freshly turned crop stubble.
There were also the resident buzzards about but I only saw four, also four kestrels were hovering over separate areas and a parcel of linnets flew over singing as they went.
I should get my camera back again from Nikon today it came back faulty last time and it's fingers crossed as I'm off to Norfolk on Monday for a few days dedicated photography all being well. I have missed a big chunk of migration with it out of action.

Red kites over Sandon

On one of my regular visits to this area I was 'checked out' by three kites that flew low over me seemingly just curious, unfortunately my camera was playing up and the quality is not great but still worth a post. Also present were up to six common buzzards.

Roe deer & field mouse

I have just returned from a very enjoyable stay with my friends Harry & Pauline Bursell near Hull and the deer was photographed nearby on a trip to the coast and the mouse was snapped in Harrys barn on a sprig od Blackberries, it is a captive bred animal and Harry releases them into his garden which doubles as a nature reserve, they are wonderful little creatures very gentle and cracking subjects for photograpers. Thanks Harry.

Wheatears

We went to Minsmere on a 'twitch' to try and see the first ever King eider ever to grace Suffolk. After some time we did manage to get quite a nice scope view and we then spent some time trying to find some Lapland buntings that had been in residence for a week but the only buntings we found on the beach were 'Reed' sadly but we were rewarded for our searching by this very approachable female northern wheatear.

Goldfinch

Another youngster taken at our drinking pool.

Juvenile sparrows

With my camera having problems I stuck my hide up in the garden to try it out on the 'locals' who eat regally from the fare that Les & I put out, fortunately the camera did not malfunction at all! the top picture is a young house sparrow, the second a young hedge sparrow.

Marbled teal

This may well be a genuine rarity, blown over to the UK by the prevailing winds last week and with no rings on it's legs. I was found at Broom and showed well for a few hours, but it was always wary especially of other waterfowl. This was photographed on 8/9 2010.

Pheasant juveniles

After failing to find any raptors at Sandon I went to the Temple End area and found large numbers of young pheasants , ungainly and with odd plumage but a couple of months will see them in all their finery.

Peregrine

I had a surprise whilst gardening in Ickleford at dads, a sudden whoosh above me caused me to look up to see a peregrine moving away after trying for one of the large numbers of wood pigeons that populate the fields adjacent to his house, typically I had not taken my camera with me!!!

Common buzzard

One of three buzzards that flew around me as sat in my usual area waiting for some raptor movement in the Sandon area.

Pied wagtail

I took this while waiting (in vain) for the bluethroat to show at Welney, it certainly had a beak full.!

Starling juvenile

This youngster was mooching about for food under my feeders and completely unperturbed by my encroachment to photograph it

Forest bug

A species of shield bug and a very fine individual, crawling across Lesley's blouse after investigating her binoculars at length. I really must get a macro lens to do these justice!

Garden tiger

A cracking little caterpillar

A Lesvos dawn

Rose coloured starlings

One of the stars of the fortnight, they arrive once the mulberries are ripe,often large flocks and strip the trees and move on to their breeding grounds in South East Europe, where they are quite difficult to see.

Black headed bunting.

Widespread and colourful, often heard before it is seen, perched declaring its 'patch'

Starred agama

Only when the sun was at its hottest did we see these lizards, they were quite large, and we were not sure if this one was watching us or the bee on the opposite side of the picture.