Snow Chickens!

I had great fun hopping around on rocks and sliding in snow trying to photograph Ptarmigan!

I went up in the North Corries in the Cairngorms a few times whilst in Scotland. Weather conditions were rather mild, it would be great to photography these beauties in a blizzard!

enjoy...

Cheers,

Daniel

Cresties!

Crested tits; fast, flighty and fantastic!

Unfortunately it was rather dull that afternoon weatherwise so without some interesting light to play with it was difficult to get a variety of images. They were a lifer though so I had a fantastic time!

During the time we spent with them we also saw a siskin and common crossbill - not bad at all...

I quite like the affect you get with the rain in the first one, this added a bit of interest but oh how I wished for some nice winter sun!

Cheers,

Daniel

Scotland Teaser

I've just returned from a fantastic trip to the Cairngorms - what a magical place!

I have a lot of images to process and will dedicate posts to each species in due course. My subjects included Ptarmigan, Red Squirrel, Crested Tit, Mountain Hare and Capercaillie!

below are two teasers...

Come back soon...

Daniel

My 300th Bird!

Hello everyone,

I spent yesterday in Hampshire having eventually given in to the lure of 2 great rarities!

We arrived at Calshot about 08:30 and saw the Spanish Sparrow right away... what a beautiful bird! It was looking right at home amongst the local house sparrows and with potential hybrids in the area it would seem it's been around for a year or so. I would love to know where abouts it was when it hopped onto a ship and hitched a ride to the UK!

This was my 300th bird species in the UK and was actually a world tick too! Next milestone is 350 which I suspect will be in a good few years (decades?) time now that I spend more time being a photographer than a twitcher!

After the sparrow we headed to Hawkhill Enclosure in The New Forest and again got onto the bird right away - an American Vagrant - Dark-Eyed Junco! Another suspected ship-assist and what a gorgeous little bird!

Here are a couple of photos, I'm particularly happy with the top one...

I'm off to Scotland next week for 11 days; 3 days wildlife photography, followed by 5 days mountaineering and then ending on another 3 days of wildlife photography!

Having never seen some of the Scottish specials, such as crested tit and ptarmigan, I'm very excited about this!

Watch this space!

Daniel

If you go down to the woods today...

Few photos from Stockgrove CP - hoping to spend more time there so expect some more soon!

D

A Few Re-Edits

I've re-edited a few old files...





hope you like!

Purple Patch

I recently spent 3 days birding in Norfolk, mainly chasing rarities but we did stumble across a few confiding migrants.

One day was spent walking to the end of Blakeney point. Any of you who have done this will know that it is man’s greatest physical endurance test!! (ahem)

Anyway, we weren’t having much luck on the rarities front so decided to go and see the seals! Whilst at the point I scan a group of flying Sanderling only to see that they had a friend with them – a purple sandpiper.

They have to be one of my favourite waders because they are both very photogenic and very confiding. This individual was unusually flighty when it was with the Sanderling but it eventually left them and flew in right next to me where I enjoy a long period of time photographing it having a feed on the shoreline, enjoy….

And to top it off we jammed into a Richard's pipit on the walk back!!