My Garden

I have a number of feeding stations and areas set up for photography in my woodland garden. Over the past couple of weeks the sun has begun to get high enough to start photographing the good variety of species that visit the feeders. One of my favourites is the Bullfinch and I'm lucky to have three pairs here at the moment. Long-tailed Tits nest in the garden and a couple of years ago I had a large family flock of over thirty. They were mainly juveniles and spent most of the Summer at the fatball feeders and were getting through over fifty fatballs a week! As my blog develops I will talk about some of my projects here and other species that live in my garden.
   
Long-tailed Tit

Blue Tit

Bullfinch (male)

Bullfinch (female)

Goldfinch

Nuthatch

Marsh Tits

This is another species that has been on my want list for some time. Like the Willow Tit they are quite difficult to photograph, they never keep still for more than a second and always seem to have their heads angled away from the camera. A real challenge but all the more rewarding when you get some decent results.

 

Building up my Stock

At the beginning of every year I make a list of bird species to target, usually the reason being that I don't have a great number of their images and need to build up my collection. It doesn't always go to plan as it is easy to get sidetracked, especially as Spring arrives bringing migrants and rarities to distract me. This year I am determined to stay focused and up to now it has gone to plan.
The next couple of posts will show a few images from my results so far. First on the list were Yellowhammer and Willow Tit, two species that I have never had much luck with.

Yellowhammer

Willow Tit

Conwy RSPB Reserve, North Wales

Whilst I was in North Wales last week, I called in at the Conwy RSPB Reserve for a few hours. From past experience I know that you can either come away with nothing or a card full of images, on this occasion I was lucky. The tide was on its way out and due to the wind direction the birds returning to the estuary would fly past the hide. These would be mainly Curlews and Oystercatchers. A bonus was a Little Egret which made it's way along the waters edge right up to the hide. One of my more successful visits there.

Curlew

Oystercatcher

Little Egret

A Change of Scenery

Having spent the majority of the last three months photographing woodland birds, I needed a change and headed into Lancashire. First stop would be Martin Mere Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. It's always good fun photographing the Ducks and Swans there at this time of year, no two visits are ever the same and I was pleased to see plenty of Wigeon in front of the hide, this being a species I need more photos of. After a few hours I moved on to the first of several other sites, in search of displaying Great Crested Grebes. I did see three or four pairs performing their dance but not within photographic range, maybe next time. A consolation was being able to get some Tufted Ducks on lovely coloured water.

Wigeon

Shelduck

Teal

Tufted Duck

Great Crested Grebe

Snow Buntings

After another wasted few hours looking for the elusive Shorelark, I decided to move around the coast to the more reliable Snow Buntings. They were moving up and down the beach as usual, but then all flew up onto the grass seed heads to feed. It made a refreshing change photographing them perched up off the ground with an idyllic back drop.