More Waders

I just can't seem to keep myself away from waders and never seem to grow tired of photographing them. Firstly a bit of double vision with a pair of redshank. This required stopping the lens down to F10 to get both birds sharp in the frame. It took quite a while to get this photo as the bird on the right insisted on constantly looking away.

Turnstone are common birds on the local shore and so its often easy to walk past them whilst looking for something more 'exotic'.
but difficult to ignore when they are glowing in a brief moment of sunlight between the rain clouds.The bird that I am often looking for, which leads to the Turnstone, being ignored is the Purple Sandpiper. There have been quite good numbers present locally this year.

To finish off and as regular readers will know, one of my favourite waders to photograph the sanderling. These shots were taken handheld but I have just built a ground pod for the camera which should hopefully open up a new low perspective on these birds. I will post some details about this after I have given it a good testing.

Lapwing Action

I have taken the odd lapwing photograph before but never any of them in flight and so decided to try and rectify this the other day. There is a field close to my home where I go to take curlew photographs that currently has about 500 lapwings sat in it, so this seemed the obvious place to head for. Before attempting any flight shots I thought I would just get a few of the birds strutting around and bathing. They really are a beautiful bird when the light hits them at the right angle.

On to some attempts at flight shots. They are quite difficult to catch in flight as they can and often do change direction very rapidly whilst in flight. they are easiest to get during take-off and landing

Stretching those characreristic broad wings.

Local Scarce and Rare

In my early efforts in 2008 I have managed to photograph a couple of scarce and a rare species.

Firstly a Mediterranean Gull which take quite a lot of finding amongst the big flocks of black-headed gulls which look very similar. I think this is the same bird that I found at the end of 2007.

There have been half a dozen Purple Sandpiper on the local rocks and sea defences roosting at high tide.

This winter there has been a small number of cattle egret arriving in the country. I am fortunate in that one turned up in a local farm at Neston. I believe this is the only the second bird recorded locally with the last one being back in 1997. Quite difficult lighting conditions during my visit and the distance of the bird required the use of the 1.4 teleconvertor on the 500mm lens.

Flying Start to the Year

The first couple of days of 2008 were slow due to terrible light conditions. I took a visit up to my feeding station to undertake the twice weekly filling of the feeders and stayed for a short session. It was fairly quiet up there, I think mainly due to the nearby presence of a sparrowhawk that fly past quite regularly. Still managed to get a couple of shots.

Blue titA chirping Coal tit

and the male woodpecker was doing his usual rounds

The real treat though came on the way home when a flock of fieldfare were located. The Fieldfare is a bird that I have struggled to photograph for the last to winters, mainly because they are so shy and flighty. Usually if you at look at them sideways from a 100 metres they are off, so I made the most of this good opportunity.

2007 Back-end Waders

I got a bit behind with my posts at the end of 2007, particularly with the large number of wader shots I accumulated so decided to combine some into one large post so that I can get on with starting to post the first shots of 2008.

Starting of with some Knot. I am fortunate to have some huge flocks on the local estuary which form impressive swirling flocks.

I managed to located a spot where I could get close to individual birds although it did mean lying down on some very cold concrete.

I only managed to get a couple of shots of Oystercatcher.

A couple of Redshank thrown in for good measure

The tiny dunlin

One of my favourite waders to photograph are Sanderling which keep you on your toes as they rush in and out of the tide line.

and in mid-runAt the larger end of the scale I found some Bar-tailed and Black-tailed godwits in amonsgt the curlew.

and some curlew to finish.

I know it not a wader but I will stick the shot on the end of this post as I really want to get on with 2008, a short-eared owl in the late afternoon out on the salt marshes.