Wildfowl and Waterbirds in Lancashire

Wildfowl and waterbirds in Lancashire: Mere Sands Wood

The glorious spring weather tempted me into a foray for wildfowl and waterbirds over in Lancashire today. Although the weather was excellent, the hit rate for species was less so with no sign of the long staying bittern, very few waders at Martin Mere WWT and absolutely no avocets at Marshide RSPB reserve. Marshide has completely changed since I was last there a few years ago with much deeper water and no nesting islands for the avocets. Instead, there is a colony of 1000s of breeding black-geaded gulls and that’s about it. To cap it all you are looking directly into the sun at white birds on bright water! A nightmare for photography;  the RSPB seem to have lost it completely there and it will be a long while before I go there again. The day was salvaged at Mere Sands Wood where I had a great couple of hours photographing water birds, backlit against the bright, almost harsh, spring sunshine. The grebes at one point almost did their beautiful reed dance but in the end, they fizzled out and began to fish. Still, some nice images were obtained despite the Nikon 200-500mm coping rather poorly when used directly into the light. I suspect the large percentage of soft images was down to refraction caused by the multiple elements in the zoom lens.

moorhen swimming mere Sands Woodwildfowl & waterbirds | cootgoldeneye female

female goldeneye displaying

goldeneye male

coot swimming

wildfowl & waterbirdswildfowl & waterbirds

black-headed gull juveniilewildfowl & waterbirds | canada goose backlitr

great crested grebe Mere Sands Woodgreat crested grebe Mere Sands Wood

great crested grebe backlit

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Songbird photography at Old Moor RSPB

Songbird photography

A couple of hours of songbird photography at Old Moor RSPB reserve near Barnsley paid dividends today resulting in more than a handful of good images. The most common bird was bullfinhc and reed bunting along with the usual suspects such as blue tit, great tit, goldfinch, blackbird and chaffinch, but we had a few visits from a male brambling and the one bird I was hoping for – yellowhammer. Yellowhammer is a bird I’ve never really photographed well, so it was nice to get some images in the bag today of both male and female both on perches and on the ground. We used a variety of flowering trees for our props – blackthorn, pussy willow and cherry blossom and of these, I think I liked the willow best. Here are just a few images from today’s songbird phorography session.

songbird phortography at Old Moor RSPB songbird phortography at Old Moor RSPB bullfinch female Yorkshire wildlife photographer  greenfinches drinking Yellowhammer male Yorkshire Yellowhammer male Yorkshire tree sparrow Yorkshire

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Coltsfoot heralds spring.

As ever, the yellow headfs of the coltsfoot heralds spring and today was no exception along the old railway tracks that criss-cross the fields around our village. Not only was coltsfoot the herald of spring but also several newly arrived chiffchaff, lapwings displaying in the ploughed fields and, of course, the first of the blackthorn flowers breaking out. Some of the wild bird cherries were in full blossom and looked fantastic lining the old railway cuttings. The air was full of birdsong as chaffinches belted out their song along with robins and dunnocks. With sand martins already on the local reservoir, the earliest ever spring record for us, it feels well and truly as if spring is here. Coltsfoot and bird cherry are featured here.

coltsfoot heralds soringcoltsfoot heralds soringblackthorn blossom

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Yorkshire East Coast Bird Photography

Yorkshire east coast bird photography

The spring sunshine lured me out for some Yorkshire east coast bird photography today, although the sun was a bit later in showing than I had hoped for. The day began with a visit to the wintering Mediterranean gulls which I’d hoped would be in full summer plumage by now but they were not quite there. One of the adults had an almost full black head but was less photogenic due to the amount of rings on the legs including a large, red Darvic ring. There was also a first-winter Med gull there which was nice to see and easy enough to pick out from the first-winter black-headed gulls by the dark eye smudge and the much heavier beak. As the weather was not what had been forecast, I decided to move on to the harbour to see if there were any rarities around. The harbour turned out to be fairly quite, with just a long staying great northern diver showing briefly, so straight on to see the pergrines on the cliffs below Scarborough castle but not before photographing the obliging house sparrows amongst the fishing pots. Sure enough, the peregrines were showing well, though the steep shooting angle made photography difficult, and I didn’t fair much better on the long staying black redstart on Marine Drive which I saw but didn’t photograph.

Deciding I ought to check out the very long staying and seemingly obliging eastern black redstart that has overwintered on Skinningrove beach, I headed north to Whitby and beyond to Cleveland to the quiet fishing harbour of Skinningrove. Sure enough, the redstart was there amongst the rocks on the beach and he was not alone; a superb pair of stonechats were there and were equally obliging. The rocks were soon in the shade of a nearby hill but the real barrier to photgraphing the redstart was an aggressive robin which was also inhabiting the rocks and was not happy with other birds on his patch. Back on the sunny side of the harbour, a different pair of stonechats put in an appearance as well as a pair of wrens but the rock pipits were the star bird here. A great day out with a great number of images under the belt and I’m still sorting them out but here are a few for starters.
Yorkshire east coast bird photographyYorkshire east coast bird photographyYorkshire east coast bird photography Yorkshire wildlife photographer house sparrow on crab pots Yorkshire wildlife photographyhouse sparrow on crab pots Yorkshire wildlife photography

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Eastern black redstart at Skinningrove

Yorkshire east coast bird photography Yorkshire east coast bird photography

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winter feeding station bird photography

Today was the first time I’ve used the Nikkor 200-500mm for some winter feeding station bird photography. The ability to zoom is a real boon when working from a hide like this, especially with a 1.4x extender attached. I’ve always used a Nikon 500mm f/4 lens for much of my bird photography but the fixed focal length can be a bit resrictive when a range of species drops by to feed. Being able to pull back if a pheasant strolls by or zoom in tight if something small like a long-tailed tit drops in is superb and can be the difference between getting the shot or missing it. Obviously there are downsides to using the 200-500mm over the 500mm f/4 – autofocus perfomance is slower and, of course, I miss the much shallower depth of field I can achieve with the 500mm. However, the honeymoon is still on for me and I love the lens a lot – it is very sharp and the AF is not so sluggish that it become a problem. Given the low light I was shooting in, it was pretty impressive. Here is a selection of the birds I captured during the shoot.

reed bunting low level nature image collared dove Streptope;ia deccaocto west yorkshire wildlife photographer reed bunting in winter plumage reed bunting in winter plumage pheasant low level viewpoint winter feeding station bird photography winter feeding station bird photography winter feeding station bird photography winter feeding station bird photography nature photography Yorkshire bird feeding station photography stock dove wildlife photography reed buntingmale bullfinch winter feeding station

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