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.