Snettisham extravaganza

Although these two pictures were taken in very poor light, they give an idea of the huge numbers of mainly red knot driven up onto the shingle banks at Snettisham by a 7.4 metre tide. These do not occur very often and Les & I had wanted to see one for ourselves and apart from the weather we were not disappointed. Apart from the pictured knot, there were hundreds od oystercatchers,redshank, spotted redshank, golden plover, ruff, curlew to name a few. We both observed that when a large flock of waders flew just over our heads the temperature seemed to go up by a couple of degrees!
 Another part of this extravaganza are the huge numbers of geese that roost out on the wash mudflats. Early each morning they leave to fly off to the local fields in their skeins of thousands, ominously as the fly over the Sandringham estate they are greeted with gunfire and I can only hope hat their aim is poor, like their outlook on nature and their record for destroying wildlife thoughtlessly.  At least one of the culprits is the Emeritus president of the World wildlife fund and with his record I consider this to be a disgrace.

Robin & Nuthatch

A trip to the lodge produces a pair of Ravens flying over calling and my first redpolls and a siskin of this autumn.The pictures though are of a robin that appeared to be admiring itself in the water and a nuthatch that was searching among the tufts of moss around the drinking pool.

Great grey shrike

A digiscoped record shot

Signal crayfish

These record shots of what I believe to be the introduced Signal crayfish were in Fowlmere RSPB nature reserve. I did not want to remove it from the water in ase it was the native British crayfish but after checking on the net I'm fairly sure this is the American one, also it was at least four/five inches long.

Kestrel

Lots of birds about in the Sandon area today, there was a large flock of linnets, 400 strong as an estimation, three buzzards patrolled the high ground, a flock of 50 lapwings were also in evidence. Large coveys of red legged partridges were calling and many brown hares were seen. My best photo opportunity came in the form of this nice female common kestrel.

Red knot

I managed to get quite close to a flock at Titchwell, I just stayed still on the beach and waited until the incoming tide pushed them towards me. They were all making gentle noises as they kept in contact. I am going to try taking a low level seat with me next time to see what I can get close to.

Brent goose

The flocks are back in Norfolk, huge skeins across the sky early in the morning, these flew low over my head, at Cley-next -the-sea.

Common seal

We took the Beans boat trip from Morston quay, it was something we had talked about doing over the years but just not around to doing. It was very informative, the crew members came up with lots of stats, the weather was great and there were lots of seals to see, this one was the best poser.

Convolvulus hawk moth

I had never seen one of these moths before, it was quite large, they migrate here from Southern Europe on the wind, I suspect that our 'Indian summer' helped this one here. It spent the day on a fence post at Titchwell.

Pintail (Northern)

This female in very pristine plumage was at Titchwell.

Common buzzard

A superb juvenile buzzard with pristine plumage, I am not sure if it was aware of me but it passed over me four times so I obviously did not concern it.

Rook

This adult rook was on the grass by the exit to the Grafham car park and posed in the sunshine for me. It may not be a beautiful bird but I think they have a lot of character and they are quite clever birds. A lot of them have now moved their rookeries into the towns so that the farmers cannot persecute them so easily.

More phalarope pictures

I had to put a couple more pictures of this superb little bird, I sat and waited on the dam and it gradually worked it's way past me completely undisturbed by my laying six feet away.

More from Grafham

I finally got a chance to go over my pictures again. the top picture was digiscoped, the second one I used my 300mm lens for

Sabines gull

This rare gull was at times viewable with the grey phalarope in the viewfinder simultaneously, for a bird that spends a lot of it's life far out in the oceans it was only too happy to lounge about on the edge of the water at Grafham water, this was the first time I had photographed one of these

Grey phalarope

This stunner was performing at Grafham water today.

Amazing spider

We found this beauty on Cavenham heath today.

Grey heron

This juvenile was captured as it flew around Lackford lakes being pursued by the resident male.

Emperor dragonfly

It is that time of year for the emperors.

Red admiral

An open and closed case...........

Raptors at Sandon

I spent a couple of hours in the Sandon area in the aftermath of the 'Katia storm' and found lots of raptors about, the top picture is a red kite that was flying along the A505. The second, one of two female marsh harriers, this one flew directly towards me. Later on I watched it flying into the wind and it actually went backwards at times.
The small tortoiseshell was resting out of the wind.

Also of note were buzzards and a kestrel.

Flower power

I really enjoy capturing insects on flowers

Grasshoppers and crickets

All these pictures were taken close to home, I think these insects are very photogenic

New macro camera

I have just purchased a Sigma 150mm macro lens and I am very impressed with the early results. Lesley & I went to Oughton head (source of the river ouse) in Hitchin and spent an enjoyable couple of hours walking round trying to find interesting insects to photograph, Les was good at spotting and here are a few of the results.........

The little capsid on the nettle leaf was smaller than a ladybird

Common rosefinch

Despite spending quite a lot of time trying I have been unable to obtain a good clear picture of what is locally anything but common!

I was great to get to see such a rarity so close to home (near Fowlmere).

It is a first year male and it was singing nicely from a ladies garden.

It was found by a local birder who was driving past and stopped for a bicycle and heard it singing, well done that man.
It is a shame it was not a full adult which is a cracking bird and not a dull little chap like this.

Honey buzzard

Another picture from Brittany and this was also taken by a canal. The bird was quite high above me but it came out as a reasonable image

Shag

These were taken in Brittany by a lock on a canal and this is the tamest I have ever come across, I was more of a curiosity to the bird than a danger and it carried on with its business.

Apology

I do not understand what has gone wrong with the blog but it is now not possible to enlarge the pictures once they have been clicked, but the older posts are still fine. I will try and find out how to cure the problem

Great crested grebe

I was really surprised by the size of fish this youngster was given by it's parent, far too big I thought - how wrong could I be, it went down its neck in less than five seconds. I apologise for the quality, the birds were some distance away but you can get some idea of the size of the fish in the second picture.