Cattle Egrets

Possibly my favourite times on our Mallorcan trip were the sessions we did photographing these Cattle Egrets. There was a constant stream of them flying to their Heronry or should it be "Egretry" Many had sticks in their beaks for nest building, a few which were ridiculously long, sometimes nearly twice the length of the bird. We didn't get much warning of their approach, as they suddenly appeared in front of us over the bushes, sometimes too close to fit in the frame. Great fun though and the evening light worked really well on them, you can see the warmer colours on the ones taken just before the sun set. 

Images From My New Hide

Over the last few months I have been constructing a permanent hide in my woodland garden. The main purpose for this is so that I can now offer photographic tuition on a one to one basis. The hide will also be available for photographers to use.
At the moment I have a number of various feeding set-ups in front of the hide and hope to be putting in a pond later in the year. The birds that visit vary in numbers and species throughout the seasons, so I will post details here on my blog of the comings and goings throughout the year.

Anyone interested can email me for details, there will be an info page going up on my main website in the next couple of days.

Last week I spent about an hour and a half in there, the visitors included: Blue Tits, Great Tits, Nuthatch, Gt-spotted Woodpecker, Stock Dove, Bullfinches (2 prs), Robins, Jays, Magpies, Woodpigeons. Some of the images from the session are below.


Bullfinch

Jay

Great-spotted Woodpecker

Juvenile Great Tit

Nuthatch

Stock Dove

Common Snipe

A couple more wader photographs from Mallorca. As I add the images of each species to my main website I will post a few here.

Common Snipe

Waders from Mallorca

Greenshanks and Spotted Redshanks were frequently feeding in front of the hides at S'albufera in Mallorca. They weren't in abundance though with only several about. Annoyingly the two species didn't seem to get on and would chase each other from their favoured feeding spots. Typically this would happen just as they were coming into photographic range, so a bit of patience was needed for these shots. Especially the Spotted Redshanks that seldom put their heads at the desired angle, getting some light in the eye was a bit of a struggle. We did however strike lucky with a very close Greenshank, at a roadside location from the car, hence the headshot.

Greenshank

Spotted Redshank

Welsh Stonechats

A sunny forecast, so a very early start this morning and I was deep in the Welsh countryside taking photographs by 05:30. I have a number of places that I annually visit in North Wales at this time of year for localised species. With the poor weather over the last couple of weeks I had a bit of catching up to do, I knew that spring was moving on and birds would be feeding their young, you suddenly realise that it is nearly summer and could have missed so much. Even with this in mind, I was slightly surprised to see a family of young Stonechats, they were feeding themselves and were very advanced. I was comparing this to my nestboxes back home where none of the Blue or Great Tits have fledged yet.
I didn't see an adult female Stonechat and had the feeling that she might already be on her second brood, as the male was singing for most of the time I was there.

Juveniles

Male

Female, taken earlier in the year

Common Whitethroat

This has been one of the species that I needed more images of for some time. A concerted effort over the last month has gone quite well with plenty of them around. Here are a few of the results.

Plovers

With the horrible weather we have at the moment, I have finally started to sort through my images from Mallorca. First up are some Plovers - Little-ringed and Kentish. It was nice to be able to photograph these small birds at close range and get some good feather detail. The low evening light has really lifted them from the background, particularly the Little-ringed Plover with it's yellow eye ring.

Little-ringed Plover

Kentish Plover