Water Rails

I have finally edited my Water Rail images from last winter. With literally over 2000 to sort through, I narrowed it down to 94 to be published on my website. Here's a select few.

More at - Steven Round Bird Photography.com

A Variety of Images

At this time of year I have many plans for photographic projects. The success of them is usually determined by the weather, which up to now, has been pretty poor. Hopefully spring will soon be here. This post is a small assortment of some of the photographs I have managed to take in the last month or so.

Blue Tit

Bullfinch

Goldfinch

Great Crested Grebe (courtship display)

Great Crested Grebe

Kestrel

Lesser Redpoll

Signs of Spring

A few shots of the singing Robin I spent some hours with yesterday. Frustratingly, he seemed to prefer to sing in the shade on an unusually sunny day.

Capercaillie

I recently heard of an obliging male Capercaillie. They are a schedule 1 species, which means that you would need a licence to photograph them in the breeding season, which is fast approaching. Consequently I was anxious to make the long journey to the highlands of Scotland as soon as possible, which I did in the middle of last week with my friend Gerhard. A good walk deep into the forest and the bird was found.
He was displaying and strutting his stuff over an area so we sat and waited, he would come close, have a look at us and then roam off again. This meant some changing of lenses which gave a good variety of shots. He flew up into the trees to feed on the pine needles, flying almost vertically, which is impressive for such a large bird. Thirteen hours driving for a couple of hours photography seems a bit crazy, but it was well worth it. Just seeing this magnificent bird was enough and what a day to remember!

There are lots more images on my website - stevenround-birdphotography.com

A Lot of Knot

The high tides in early January here on the Wirral produced some amazing sights of what was estimated to be 24,000 Knot. They gather on the shoreline and are pushed closer and closer as the incoming tide leaves them with very little room to roost. They were literally a few feet away from the promenade at high tide. I will do a couple of posts of them, this one being of them mainly on the ground. The next post will be of flight shots.

Sparrowhawk up Close

I have been keen to get out to my hide over the last week as there have been up to 11 Greenfinches visiting the feeders, along with the 40 plus Goldfinches. Greenfinches have been quite scarce here for some time now, with only the occasional one visiting from time to time.
A brief spell of sunshine and I set myself up to photograph them. I had only been in the hide for 5 minutes when the alarm calls of  the Blue Tits alerted me to the probability of a Sparrowhawk in the area. It then swooped down in front of the hide hoping to catch an unwary Goldfinch. Without success, it perched up next to the feeders. As I was set up to photograph small birds it was too close to fit in the frame so I made the most of a few close up head and shoulder shots.

Waxwings

This winter has seen one of the biggest invasions of Waxwings into the UK. Tens of thousands of them have moved southwards through the country over the last couple of months. I couldn't resist going out and adding more images of these to my already large collection. I wanted to try and get shots of them on the ground, as this would be generally a little different from the majority of my photographs of them. At first light they were coming down onto the grass to feed on the berries they had displaced from the trees. The low sun and the frosty ground really enhanced them. I also took some large group shots of them in the trees and it only really leaves me with flight shots still to do.