Pale-bellied Brent Goose at Penzance

Another bird worth another try, very approachable
ISO 2500, 1/50, dark!

"Artistic blur" 1/40s

Grey Phalarope at Newlyn

Terrible light yesterday but still managed a few record shots. Will try again soon when weathers better (if it stays)

Garden Birds in Shropshire

Balearic Shearwaters off Carbis Bay

Failed attempt at filming Balearic Shearwaters...

Waxwings at Ellesmere

All the video I managed, concentrated on photo's beacuse they were very mobile! Photos soon

Merry Christmas

I haven't managed to fully sort through all of the images from Shropshire yet so I will get them up sometime after Christmas. I have some average shots of Waxwings, low light didn't help.

Thank you to the followers, for all comments and views, Its greatly appreciated!!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!

Something a little different to a Robin in the snow image

17-40mm, at 17mm

Assorted Gulls on Carbis Bay Beach

Just a few gulls on Carbis bay beach late afternoon and yes, complete with crappy sound (definitely external mic/sound recorder after xmas!).

Ive got some flight video of the Balearic Shearwaters which im about to edit but there is a lot of dodgy panning so dont expect anything decent if i do upload anything!

Still 100's/1000's birds offshore so if you haven't been yet, what are you waiting for!!

off to Shropshire on Friday until the day before Christmas eve so not sure where we'll be going up there (Gigrin, Rutland maybe??) but I will be trying to hunt down some Waxwings so stay tuned after Christmas for hopefully some images!

Merry Christmas to everyone if i dont update my blog between now and the 25th

Purple Sandpiper Video

No sound as the 7D mic is terrible (and it was windy), Dodgy horizon as I was resting on a rock and cheapy transitions between the shots!

Purple Sandpiper's at Jubilee Pool

haven't taken many images lately due to ringing but managed to get out on Wednesday to photo the Purple Sands at Penzance. My patients paid off as I was lying down and had them down to less that a meter (some walking within a foot of my legs!) I wish I could have stayed longer but I wasn't paying attention to the tide and I only noticed I should move when the camera strap was soaked by a wave (luckily I had my hand under the camera or I would have been testing the weather proofness of the 7D!) By the time i got back to dry land the area I was lying in was underwater!

Worth it tho', shot a bit of video to but i haven't looked at that yet/been bothered to edit it.

PS: NO birds were flushed in the making of this post (Note to the Birdforum brigade!!!)

Curlew

Ringing

Just a few ringing images as I haven't done much photography for ages...

Video's on BBC Website!

Videos didnt make the show but are on the BBC Autumnwatch website!!

Green Heron (featured on main videos page):http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/uk/yourmovies/gallery-other.shtml?id=215440

Fieldfare: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/uk/yourmovies/gallery-other.shtml?id=216410

Snow Bunting at Newlyn P2

Shame about the shade on the cycle track...

Too bright, too shallow depth of field and a bit boring but..

Taken this morning

Snow Bunting at Newlyn

Just a quick post as im about to go back down to Newlyn to take some more. Just one image ive found from this morning

Fieldfare in the garden

My first Fieldfare of the winter in my nans garden today. Once again i went for video before images, which may kill off my photography blog if im not to careful :(

The Green Heron footage didnt make the show which is a shame. Although considering it was one of the first videos I have taken with the 7D i think it did pretty well to get nearly broadcast!!
Thanks for all the comments recently! I havent really been replying to them as Ive been busy

Green Heron on BBC2!!

Just a quick note to say i have received an email from someone at the BBC saying that they want to broadcast my Green Heron video on Autumnwatch, tomorrow (Thursday) 8:30pm BBC2. because of the type of show they cant guarantee that they will fit it in but fingers crossed!!

If you cant watch tomorrow then here is the footage. Sorry crap sound and dodgy panning

Green Heron P3

I have just had a quick run through of the last 200 or so images as i want to get onto the video, here are just 2 i came across. will go through them again when i get chance and might post some more but now its time to experiment with HD video

Green Heron at Heligan P2

Still going through the images, here are a few more. I should have some more up tomorrow. I am also editing the video together so hopefully that might be ready soon

GREEN HERON!!!!!!

Caught up with it today, have 14GB of pics and video to go through, need to sort out Lightroom trail and then i can play with the 7D RAW files. So you can have what ive done so far. 1 pic and 1 video, video is unedited as i haven't worked that out yet, got 2 nice videos (that ive found so far) of it fishing.

just a quick post to show the images and hopefully tomorrow i will be able to show you all of them

Flickr isnt the best video hoster (not amazing quality) but hey.....

sorry about crap sound

Green Heron!

Still havent been :(

Wasnt allowed to take my last 2 lessons off today to get the Heron with Paul! Who needs education, I know what Id rather do, I didnt even learn anything!

Will be there tomorrow so for now all i can do is look at the pics and vids:

http://www.cornwall-birding.co.uk/the-cornwall-species-list/green-heron/

Thanks to all contributors of images and videos to the website, Derek's and John's videos are definitely worth watching!

Wheatear at Davidstow and something a little rarer!!

This post should include images but for some reason photoshop wont read the 7D RAW files, definitely CS5 time!!

Half a day at college today so we headed off in search of the Buff-Breasted Sandpiper at Davidstow, it wasnt there...

While we were there the pager went off, MEGA Cornwall GREEN HERON...

Yep, Green Heron at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, Pager message came through at 15:22 and Heligans last entry was at 15:30, according to Google maps thats 58mins away, CRAP!

Well it better stay until Saturday!

I was also very surprised that Heligan wouldn't shut later this evening or open earlier tomorrow so more birders could connect with it, and at £10pp they will make A LOT!!

Images and info here!

Images of Wheatear will come at some point and hopefully on Saturday i will be posting Green heron shots. Good luck to those that go tomorrow. I need a good excuse to get off college!

PS: Red-eyed Vireo and Myrtle Warbler in Co.Cork plus Green Heron in Cornwall (and other stuff like Bobolink, American Waders/Pipits that have been around/still are around) what else could be in the country?!!?!

Ringing at Treveal

We attempted to ring Snipe at Marazion last night but we gave up after a few hours of nothing and hit the pub with some of the local birders, hoping that tomorrow would bring better ringing.

It did...

We arrived at Treveal at about 6:30am and started setting up the nets in a few places around the valley. None of us had been to Treveal before so trying to find decent ringing spots in the dark was hard!

Anyway after about nearly 7 hours of ringing we caught the following (not huge numbers but some good birds!!!) 2 Firecrest, 2 Goldcrest, 4 Great Tit, 3 Blue Tit, 5 Chiff-Chaff, 1Wren, 3 Long-tailed Tit, male Blackcap and a male Blackbird. Also Yellow Wagtail andMerlin over

An interesting Chiff-Chaff was caught too, One of the Chiff-Chaff caught had a ring on, after close inspection Mark had ringed it earlier in the week at Marazion! What are the chances!

and Sam, its lucky I could be bothered to take my camera around this time!!!

Firecrest

Firecrest

Firecrest

Goldcrest

Ringing at Marazion

Went ringing at Marazion 2 weeks ago with Mark Grantham. We had 4 mist nets up which over a period of 4 hours caught 16 birds (I think). Sedge Warbler (8), Reed Warbler (3), Cetti's Warbler, Reed Bunting, Blue Tit (2) and the highlight of the Morning, a juv. Kingfisher!! I used my phone for the majority of images as i couldn't be bothered with the camera but i did take it out for the last bird, this Blue tit.

Dog Control Order on Hayle Estuary

So far there have been 12 objections to the dog control order on the Hayle Estuary and only one letter of support! We hear so many complaints from birders about disturbance caused by dogs on the estuary so this is your opportunity to do something about it!! PLEASE write showing your support for a Dog Control Order on the estuary BEFORE27th September to the address below or send an e-mail to Tina.Beeley@cornwall.gov.uk The area to be covered by the DCO and further details can be seen on the Council’s webpages:

http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=25172

We suspect the number of objections has been helped by the letter in last week’s ‘The Cornishman’ newspaper in which a local resident expressed her views on the introduction of a DCO in no uncertain terms. Unfortunately, in spite of two excellent responses (by Cornwall Council and Dave Parker) correcting the misinformation and total nonsense in that letter, the paper has declined to publish these today. We are not surprised but of course very disappointed.

Please write if you can before the 27 Sept to:

Ms Tina Beeley, Legal and Democratic Services, Room 43, Cornwall Council, St Clare, Penzance,TR18 3QW

Thanks, Cornwall Birding and RSPB

Please support the DCO, remember the Swan that was mauled to death by a dog on the estuary a few years back!! Pass on the message!

PS: more images soon, been busy lately sorry. I have some images of the birds ringed at Marazion Marsh last Saturday which ill probably post tomorrow.

Goldfinch nr. Nanquidno

Well this is about the best ive seen today!!!

Saw Citrine Wagtail yesterday but didnt catch up with the Wrynecks and Ortolan Buntings, so this morning me and Monty had planned to return to Tregiffian Farm in search of the Ortolan Buntings, this plan went out the window when i looked out the window this morning! I decided that if it cleared up i would get down and give it a go, well it kind of cleared up, ish!

First stop the reported Short-toed Lark at Arden-Sawah Farm. It was VERY foggy, bad visibility/small bird/big field, wasnt the best combo. After about 30mins of waiting we headed of to Lands End for the Wryneck, in hindsight Porthgwarra would have been a better bet, missed the Wrynecks to!

So now with the fog coming back the only place to go was Nanquidno for the O Buntings, and guest what, no bloody birds. Still nice to get out and i did manage these pics.

1/125 and 1/160 handheld

Also while at Lands End, near Trinity pool i saw a bird dart into cover, managed to get on to it with the bins and all I can say is poss. Flycatcher with pretty prominent white eye ring, it didnt click until Brian Field mentioned the Brown Flycatcher in Yorkshire, that was it ;-)...... I wish

Black Tern at St.Gothian

A few images of the juv. Black Tern at St.Gothian Sands yesterday. Took loads of images but the majority were out of focus, the bird was very fast. (Just like photo'ing a Swallow). I resorted to Manual focus as the AF could barely keep up. Thanks Paul for suggesting it, i never would have tried it else!

At some point I have images from Stithians i took with Monty's Canon 60mm Macro lens, i just need to find the memory card with them on.

more images of the Black Tern here:

Monty

Paul

PS: i have been trying out a new resizer and it seems to have lost A LOT of quality in the picture, will be back with CS3 "save for web" next time.

PPS: ive just noticed Google have added a page view thingy in the dashboard, worth a look! some cool stats, the top 3 countries i get page views from, 1st UK, 2nd USA and surprisingly in 3rd Taiwan!!! and Thanks Steve, Monty, Simon and John/Sue as you are in the top 5 URL referrals. Thank you!

Macro

Went down to Botallack on Wednesday last week with Monty in search of Choughs. We saw them but i didnt get any decent images. I did however use Monty's Canon 60mm macro lens and Ring flash (which was a expensive mistake as im now looking for macro lenses). hard to get used to using the flash but i did get some nice images. shame its a EF-s lens but it was good to use the 450D again.

Thanks to John and Robert for the ID's

Cock's-foot Grass

Flash burnt it out a bit here

DoF :-) Greenbottle (Thanks John!!)

Common Carder

Pelagic

Yesterday morning i was on the Pelagic mentioned in the previous post. Me, Paul, Monty and a group from shropshire left St.Ives just after 5am. We "sailed" to 7 miles NW (It think) of St.Ives and put out the chum. This attracted the usual stuff, Kittiwakes, Gannets, Gulls and a few better things, Storm Petrels, a single Arctic tern, 2 Sooty and a few Balearic Shearwaters. (also on the way out we had Arctic Skua)

Im not extremely happy with my images from the trip as the conditions weren't great. out of the about 500 images i took i have about 10 which are ok and the 3 which are below. Not a great hit rate but anyone on the boat would agree it wasnt easy!!!! The majority of images are just slightly out of focus.

Oh but no Wilsons :-(

Im booked on another one on the 21st so hopefully better images and a wilsons

Balearic Shearwater

Storm petrel

Fulmar

Sorry!

Can i apologise to all the readers (are there any??) of my blog! I have promised images and so far have posted very little. To be honest I still havent looked through my images from lake Vyrnwy fully and this is mainly due to the laptop is on its last legs!

Anyway I have ordered a new PC from Pc specialist (https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/) they are a very very good company and should be your first call if you are about to buy a new PC!! they build the computer to the spec you want which for a photographer wanting more memory or RAM etc etc it is brilliant. I wont bore you with my spec (unless you want it?, NO, ok) all I can say is i think i went OTT and went A LOT over budget!!

The pc should be here some time this week coming and should hopefully be up and ready to process images on Saturday after the Pelagic with Paul, Monty and Mark, which i hope to have frame filling images of Wilsons Petrel.

And last of all sorry to all the people who's blogs i usually comment on or who appear in the blog list on the left hand side, i have been reading your blogs just havent commented for ages!

Here is an image you have all seen 100's of times but just to show what we hope to see on Saturday, Wilson Storm Petrel...

Book your place on one of the Cornwall birding pelagics from St.Ives through out August here...

http://www.cornwall-birding.co.uk/pelagics/

Farm Stuff Part 1 - Chickens

Images from a friends farm of the chickens! I used 1D2 and 17-40mm to get a different perspective. Next up will be either images of Cows or Sheep....

Also new Cornwall Birding yahoo group, to discuss anything about birds in Cornwall: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Cornwall-Birding/

not technically perfect but funny

Slimbridge Part 2

Part 2 of Slimbridge. This will probably be the final post as the other images i took were quite similar and i cant then post them another time when i have no images to post. Next will be images from Lake Vyrnwy, that will be a small post as i didnt take that many images.

They take security very seriously at all WWT centres...

Wood Duck

Red Crested Pochard, shame about the burnt out bit

male Smew, shows the DoF