Little Owls

Last week I made a long overdue trip to photograph Little Owls in Yorkshire. It had been nearly six years since I was last there and I didn't even know if they would still be in the same place, as I arrived I scanned the area and sure enough there was one sitting in almost the exact spot I hade photographed them last time I was there. Unfortunately my day was cut short by thick fog just after lunch so another trip up there is on the cards, hopefully sooner than six years.

Fighting Redshanks

It's the time of year when I start tidying up my hard drives of the years images, putting the monthly shots into species lists and ruthlessly getting rid of anything that won't be usable. It's while doing this that I often discover photographs that I had forgotten I had taken or ones that have never been looked at. Over the next few months I will post some of these images as I work my way through them.


These Redshanks were photographed back in February, I was lying on the beach photographing a Bar-tailed Godwit when a single Redshank landed in front of me and started to feed, soon another arrived and they started calling, next there was an aggressive confrontation as they locked bills and tried to kick one another, all over in a few seconds they went on their separate ways as if nothing had happened.

Waxwings

With large numbers of Waxwings in the country at the moment I was in no rush to chase after them, preferring to wait until some turned up locally. A flock of 40 in Kelsall, Cheshire wasn't too far away so I made the trip, they had been there a few days and had already stripped several of the Rowan or (Mountain Ash) trees of berries, these are their preferred diet so I think they were getting ready to move on to find more fruit laden trees elsewhere.
Ideally for photography the birds need to be low down and feeding but this wasn't going to happen here, I took a few shots and decided that I would try and catch up with some more over the next few months.

Rooks

Over the last few weeks when the sun has decided to show I have been trying to photograph Rooks in flight. Thanks to my friend Rich for location details of this large flock which has been very obliging and photogenic in the late afternoon sunlight.
They are good fun to do with their random flight patterns and irregular shapes that they form, I'll be doing some more sessions with them when the sun shines.

Dragonflies

I'm sorting through images from earlier in the year and found some Dragonflies taken in the Summer. I usually spend quite a bit of time each year photographing Dragonflies and Damselflies but didn't seem to manage it this year, I think probably down to the poor weather in late Summer.

Southern Hawker

Black-tailed Skimmer

Broad-bodied Chaser

Broad-bodied Chaser

Common Darter

Wirral Coast

I spent a couple of hours on the North Wirral Coast yesterday afternoon, it was suprisingly quiet with birds, the only ones worth photographing were a female Red-breasted Merganser and a Razorbill. They were both sitting on a very choppy sea, considering that there was no wind it was quite strange.

Black-tailed Godwits

No two sessions photographing the local Black-tailed Godwits are ever the same, whether they are busy feeding or fighting and bickering with each other, their plumages also vary greatly from drab grey-brown to orange, depending on the time of year, so each visit will produce something different.

I spent an afternoon in August photographing them and here are some of the results.