Christmas Selection

This may very well be my last post of the year.So I thought I would show some of my favourite images from a busy year with the camera.They are all birds as they do seem to occupy most of my time but I have also enjoyed some memorable days photographing red deer,red squirrels and salmon so I may post  more later. Hope you enjoy this selection and thanks to you all for looking in and good health and happiness in 2014.

Happy Christmas

Just a short post this week to wish all my followers and fellow photographers a Very Happy Christmas.Christmas is rapidly approaching and I may not have enough time to get out and obtain more material for the blog.I have recently been searching for a barn owl to photograph but with to date no success.So I will have to make do with the one above which was photographed at the beginning of the year.

Come the New Year and hopefully some better weather normal service will be resumed.Thanks again to everyone for looking in and your kind comments,it makes it all worthwhile.Hope you all enjoy the festive season and we all look forward to next year and many encounters with our wonderful wildlife.

Pottering around Pilling

Yesterday on a sunny but cool day I went for a ride around some of my old haunts in the Pilling area.It was ideal in the car as I was able to cover a lot of territory and keep comfortable using the car as a mobile hide.I had hoped to catch up with some owls,barn,short eared or little but none were forthcoming and as yet I haven't found any photographable owls at previous haunts.It was still a pleasant day however and I managed some reasonable images of whooper swans and pinkfoots in the Eagland Hill area.Also what was very nice was seeing a large flock( approx 200+ ) of curlews feeding in roadside fields.I had earlier met up with Simon and we both enjoyed photographing the curlews from the comfort of the car.Perhaps the best birds of the day were the grey partridge in the vicinity of the feeding station at Bradshaw Lane.These could be introduced birds by the shooting fraternity but I like to think they could be native wild birds which have been present for many years in the Pilling area.Hope you enjoy my account and images from a pleasant day revisiting some of my old haunts.  

Big Tides ... Big Flocks

This week has seen some very high tides culminating in yesterday's storm surge which caused much damage and flooding around the coast.Lancashire did have coastal flooding and the Promenade at Blackpool  and other coastal routes were closed to traffic during the height of the storm.The North Wales Coast and down the East Coast of Yorkshire ,Lincolnshire and Norfolk took the brunt of the bad weather with much damage and flooding to properties.I stayed at home yesterday and today and worked on the images I had taken on Wednesday.
On Wednesday I visited the coast at Southport to watch and photograph the high tide wader roost.I think this is one of the most exciting spectacles to witness and photograph on the Lancashire coastline and I never cease to be amazed by the sheer numbers of birds present.I have tried to show above some of the birds present which consisted mostly of knot,bar tailed godwits,grey plover and oystercatcher. There would also have been dunlin and sanderling present in the huge numbers of birds at the roost.If you look carefully at a couple of the images above you will see a photographer, not me , who was under camouflage and was surrounded by many thousands of birds.He must have got some terrific images of the waders coming and going from the roost.I think I will have to try this approach on a subsequent visit. Thanks for looking in and hope you enjoy my efforts above to try and convey one of nature's finest spectacles.

Waiting For a Kingfisher

Recently I have made a couple of visits to Yarrow Valley Country Park near Coppull.This is a well known location to see kingfishers.There is one particular area where the kingfisher is a daily visitor.On one of my visits I just missed a sighting and the kingfisher didn't return in the three hour wait on a very cold day.A subsequent visit was more successful and the kingfisher stayed on view for around twenty minutes.The lighting was however poor and the images shown above of the kingfisher can be certainly improved upon and hopefully on another day I should get the images I am looking for.
However whilst waiting for the kingfisher to show I attracted other birds to the surrounding area with some bird seed. I was quite pleased with these images of robin,chaffinch and nuthatch. Present nearby was a grey wagtail which also provided opportunities for some shots.I can recommend Yarrow Valley Country Park for a pleasant afternoon out with maybe a sighting of  one of our special birds,the kingfisher.Thanks for looking in and I will be out and about next month to bring you more accounts from my days with the camera. 

A Day At The Seaside

Last week I had a day visiting Rossall,Fleetwood and Blackpool.There was a reasonable high tide which would be ok for the waders at Rossall and Fleetwood and I planned to watch the starlings come in to roost at Blackpool's North Pier.Things didn't quite go to plan however and the waders didn't show at their usual roosting spot on the beach at Rossall Point.Maybe the tide wasn't high enough or they have now moved elsewhere.All was not lost however and I amused myself photographing  dogs,ships and general scenery.A juvenile lesser blackback ( I think ) provided an image or two as it fed on a thornback ray { I think } brought in on the tide.The highlight however was as I was leaving to discover a female stonechat feeding on the edge of the golf course.This bird was very obliging and gave great opportunities for some nice portrait shots.These are ones which should please PW !!
I then called in at Fleetwood Marine Lake where there was a nice group of Red Breasted Mergansers patrolling the lake.Another nice surprise here was to find a purple sandpiper roosting in the sun with the turnstones on the island.My final port of call was the North Pier at Blackpool to wait for the arrival of the starling roost.They did eventually arrive but there were not many birds,this may improve over the next month or so as more birds arrive.The lack of starlings was compensated however by a lovely sunset painting the sea and sky.Hope you enjoy the various images above from my day out at the seaside and thanks for looking in.