Redstarts

The Redstart is one of those species I find that I have to photograph every year, even though I have many hundreds of images of them, it's almost like an addiction. The Welsh woodlands are full of them at this time of year and so I spend quite a bit of time over there. The pair I photograph seem to have bred a little earlier than usual this year and the young had fledged at the beginning of June. I was hoping to get shots of the adults feeding the young away from the nest, but last weeks weather put paid to that, hopefully they won't have become too independent when I go back this week.

I'll probably do another post in a few weeks if all goes well, for now here's some of this years shots, starting of with a few of the the star of the show - the male, one of the female and then a young chick.

 

Bright and Beautiful

The male Yellow Wagtail is one of the most, if not the most, vivid and colourful birds in the UK, the female is also a very striking bird but lacks the yellow head.  I always enjoy my annual Spring visits to try and photograph them, even though they are quite elusive. You can hear them calling from the fields but the vegetation keeps them well hidden.  After several trips and many hours I  managed to get some reasonable shots:

 

Cute and Cuddly

Each Spring I spend some time photographing ducklings, these are usually Mallards, as being common are easy to find. This year I specifically wanted to get some shots of Canada Geese goslings, although the adults are very common, you don't see a great deal with goslings, not in my part of the world anyway. A local park had a pair that had two very approachable youngsters which I spent a few hours with.
Locally I found a family of Mandarin Ducks that had eight ducklings, this was an unexpected bonus as I had never photographed them before.

Canada Goose

Mandarin Duck

Flying Swifts

Following on from my last post, I spent a bit of time making the most of some low flying Swifts. Although fast, they have a reasonably predictive flight path, making them a little easier to photograph compared to the Swallows and Martins which are more erratic. Still a challenge though and there are always plenty of blurred images to delete.

Kings of the Air

I never really go out with the intention of specifically photographing Swallows, Martins and Swifts in flight, they just usually happen to be around where I am concentrating on other species and a few chance shots are taken. This week has been good for encountering them and I have managed a few reasonable images. It has got me thinking that I really need to dedicate some proper sessions to them. Here are a few from this week.

Swallow

House Martin

 Swift

A Bit Busy

I've not been able to update the blog for a while, the reason being that I have been busy editing images for a project that a company are working on. I have just about finished, for now. So to get back into the swing, here is a quick post of some Goosander shots, taken back in February.

Spring Song

As Spring seems to finally be here, I thought I would show a selection of singing bird images that I have taken over the last few weeks.  I'll start off with a Goldcrest, this is one of a pair that have built a nest in my garden, hopefully there will be more photographs to come of them as they start to feed their young.

Dunnock

I spent many hours waiting for this Wren to sing from the top of a pile of logs.  I knew he sang from there as I'd seen him previously but never when I had the camera in hand or when the light was good.  He finally performed and amusingly had a fly on his tongue while he was singing, which you can see on the large cropped version of the image below.

Robin