A Late Hobby

Just over a week ago I spent some time at my local RSPB reserve - Burton Mere Wetlands on the Wirral. A juvenile Hobby had been there for several days and with the wind in the right direction, was giving some close up views of its aerobatics, whilst catching Dragonflies. Over the five days I spent there, only a couple of them really had the bird close enough for some good shots, including it perching up in a tree. There were plenty of Dragonflies around which I assume was the reason for it not being on its way south, as it should have been at this time of year.

Garden Buzzards - 12 Months On

It is almost a year since I started to feed the Buzzards in the garden and the pair are coming down daily now. They recognise me to the extent that I only have to go outside and they will suddenly appear, calling and circling around, hoping that I am going to feed them. They now get quite frantic when I put the food out for them, noisily sitting in the trees nearby and will swoop down to feed as soon as I go back to the house.

North Wirral Coast

A few shots from a couple of weeks ago. The winds weren't quite strong enough or in the right direction to bring the Leach's Storm Petrels as close as hoped, although I did get a couple of "at sea" images. Here's some of the species that were close enough for photography.

Leach's Storm Petrel

Little Egret

Little Egret

Oystercatcher

Common Redshank

Black-headed Gull

Red Grouse

In August a trip was arranged to the Yorkshire moors to photograph Red Grouse in the flowering heather. The majority of the birds were in family groups, with the younger ones still not in full adult plumage. We did manage to get some shots of male adults though. It was a real contrast to the previous years visit in October when the heather had finished flowering. I now have a total of 150 Red grouse images on my main website.

 

Garden Snails

With such a wet summer and with so many Snails around, I spent a few evenings photographing them. For such a simple and slow subject it was quite a task to get the right poses.

 

Kestrel Up Close

Earlier this week I had the fortune to encounter a very obliging Kestrel. It was hunting for food with brief spells of hovering and then perching on posts, sometimes landing within 10m of where I was standing.

Common Darters - Up Close

I had a play around yesterday with some macro shots of Common Darter dragonflies. It is amazing watching them catching flies in mid air. On the second picture you can see it is holding it's freshly caught prey. It must be pleased with itself, as it has such a lovely smile.