A comment I hear often from friends about my hobby is "I don't know how you have the patience for it", and it has to be said, I do have some patience when it comes to getting photos of wildlife. I have to often wait for the subject to appear, wait for the weather to be bright enough for a photo, wait for other factors to be right, like how close the subject is, if I have a clear view, if it's not being scared off by other things, etc. etc. And I have had some seemingly insane sessions of having to wait, for example, for a bittern to show, for over 6 hours, in a freezing cold hide in the middle of winter, only to see it for about 30 seconds.
Therefore I was quite surprised at how impatient and annoyed I became when, arriving at some horse paddocks in Brownhills, to find for the second time running that the glossy ibis that had been entertaining many a visitor, had again flown off. Not to be seen again that day. The previous attempt had been with Dave Hutton, and we'd searched fruitlessly for it around the surrounding area.
Again, I'd arranged to meet Dave, and had sent him a text to warn him, but he didn't read it before arriving, and after realising the bird wasn't there, called me a Jonah, and left! I was so peed off at again missing the bird, I could barely bring myself to speak to another visitor, so scuttled back to my car. I think part of it had been because I had had a task to do earlier in the day, and having waited to do that, meant I'd missed the ibis, and in good weather.
So when an opportunity to visit the site for a third time arose, I was reluctant to bother, if I'm being honest. But I did, and upon walking through the gate I was relieved to hear from the folks there already, that the ibis was still present, albeit in the back field.
Gear grabbed, I joined the group watching it from a distance. The problem then was, I already have a good few pics of a glossy ibis from the one at Hungerford, so getting shots on a cloudy morning from about 100 yards wasn't appealing. No-one was willing to approach the second field, which may have been down to them not wanting to spook it. But then one of the girls from the stables strolled past, up to the second field with a horse, and back past us again. The ibis, much like the one at Hungerford, didn't bat an eyelid and stayed put. I asked the others if they were going to go for a closer look, and if they minded me going. They didn't mind, but chose not to follow me over.
While I was now a fair bit closer, the light wasn't great, and bits of mist drifted through. The ibis seemed content to probe for food in the small puddles made by the horses' hooves, occasionally taking flight when the gulls and magpies went up first. Whilst watching it, I tried to get something of a more artistic shot, with a horse also in the shot. Sadly, as I took the photo, the horse decided to empty its bladder, and the resulting image wasn't really worth airing!
Eventually it decided to fly over to the first field, which was where all the others were patiently waiting. I crept around the hedge to get a view, and hoped the light might improve to get at least some reflection shots, while it paddled in one of the flooded areas of the paddock. By the time the light did start to improve, the ibis had decided to take a wash, and was splashing away all the mud from the other field, from itself.
Then spent some time, strutting about with its wings stretched out, to dry them off.
And then flew back to the other field, just as the light started to improve considerably. Typical, so we all thought. I grabbed a shot when a rare beam of sunlight caught the ibis, though it was still at distance.
Would it ever come closer? Thankfully yes was the answer, and back it flew to the first field, and landed much closer than before. I have to admit to being a little envious of the photographers who were now in the best spot, but I refrained from approaching them, to allow them to reap their reward for their patience. However, when an elderly couple strolled past me and past the ibis, to the other group, I decided to chance it too, and as before, the ibis ignored me.
Now on the right side for the occasional sunlight, I could get the sort of shots I had hoped for.
It was now a case of waiting for some decent light, and ensuring the focal point was on the head of the ibis, which was now filling the frame.
Thankfully the little joystick on the back of the 7D makes moving the focal point around simple, and I set the frame up, and waited for the ibis to line its head up with the point, to grab the shot I wanted.
When it took time to pose, this task was made even easier, and I soon noticed the shot counter falling and not returning to 22, meaning I had almost filled the card!
Card swapped, and I grabbed a couple more before the ibis strolled off, further away again. But I had taken far more shots than expected, and after looking at the approaching clouds, decided to head back.
So, once again, this third visit proved that a little patience and determination, usually yields rewards. And my mood had improved with them.
After welcoming in the New Year with excessive drinking, followed by a dreadful hangover, I was hoping to get cracking on trips out and about on cold, frosty, sunny days. Hmm. 2014 started as 2013 ended. Wet. In fact, for the first week of the year I failed to go anywhere or take a single photo. All very depressing.
Sure I tried to get out in breaks between the downpours, finding a huge flock of finches on the Lickey Hills, for example. Alas, even though they were all around me, and perched on the roofbars of my car, it was so gloomy I'd have needed a spotlamp attached to my lens to even work out what I was looking at, let alone get a decent shot.
I did try for the little owls one morning, though it was cloudy. Found them both, got some pics of one before it flew off, and almost, despite having a 4x4, got stuck on the verge.
Thankfully after the slow start, I managed to find time to get out when the sun was out, even if it only allowed a break at lunch, to visit the local great grey shrike. This has proved to be a real draw for visitors, and it's rare to drive past the area without seeing at least one person, scanning the fields for the bird.
After starting out at the back of the plantation, the shrike began to favour the area nearer the road, which was not only better for the light for photos, but also meant no need for a very muddy walk along the canal, an even muddier hike around the fields, and of course prevented me from being labelled an egotistical, money-shot-grabbing *insert expletive here of your choice*, as I was so generously called after my first sortie into the public area.
If the shrike wasn't around though, often the buzzards, kestrels or local sprawk would provide some entertainment. The latter usually pursued by crows.
I didn't solely focus on the shrike though - with one sunny day forecast, I decided to head over to Draycote Water, to see if the smew and great northern diver were around. It was relative calm for the area, and whilst walking along the path, I took advantage of some goldeneyes fishing close to the shore, with both male and female present.
The smew was easy to find, as it glows in sunshine.
And was lovely to see with some blue water, unlike the last one I photoed.
Alas the diver remained distant, but I managed to capture some mergansers, both bobbing around, and also taking flight.
Back to the shrike challenge. Getting a shot of it was still a case of being there at the right time, and in the right place. My first decent shots came after deciding to wander up the path, away from everyone else, to see if I could see it from the top of the hill. I could, but it was still distant. Then, as another birder scrambled up the embankment to join me, the shrike chose to fly much closer. I grabbed some shots, and tried (in vain) to wave to everyone down the road, to come closer. God knows what drivers going by thought of someone stood facing a hedge, waving an arm around frantically...
It was still nowhere near as close as the one at Napton, but flew a bit closer still, and I finally bagged some half decent shots. Far better than those from late last year, when the light was at such a nasty angle.
And with a blue sky behind. Arguably rarer than the shrike!
Walking back down to rejoin the others, after the shrike flew off, of course, I felt bad that I hadn't been able to attract their attention - if only I could whistle! I can't. I've tried. I just blow air and look more stupid than usual.
Thankfully the shrike flew closer again, but this time where everyone was waiting, and allowed more shots to be taken, although not quite as close as before.
That changed when it flew into the lower field, and landed right next to the hedge. Agonisingly though, the wrong side of the sun, so it was backlit. With a fair bit of post-processing, I managed the shot below, but not great.
Most subsequent visits were brief, usually helping new visitors to locate the bird if they didn't know where to look. When it was staying distant, I'd just go home. But on the last visit, again the bird was sat at the back, I spotted a group of birders at the wrong layby, so called them up and showed them the shrike. Annoyingly I hadn't got my gear out when the shrike flew at us, and over our heads into the fields behind. I drove round to see if I could locate, failed, and returned to find the birders had left. It was then that I spotted the shrike had returned, and was sat, pretty close to the path! And with the light behind me too.
With the place to myself, and no-one to offend, I took a few shots, walked up the path to get closer, took some more, and so on, until I was as close as I could get, without being in the field. Like the bird has any perception of the hedge as being an acceptable boundary! But, it does provide something of an object to hide behind, perhaps.
From here I could take a few shots, as the shrike maintained balance on the thin perch, moving in the breeze.
I moved around slightly to get a different backdrop to the shots.
I even took some video footage of it, but like a muppet, forgot to tighten my tripod head in place, and halfway through the clip, the breeze blew the lens off target, sending the shrike off the left of the screen. I don't think John Aitchison has anything to worry about just yet!
But at least 2014 was finally up and running.
It's the last day of the year and I'd better get something written down here of recent trips out. Aside from dipping on the parrot crossbills at Budby Common (Notts) - that was fun, standing looking at a puddle for about 6 hours and seeing no sign of the birds - I have had better luck with their two-barred relatives, a velvet scoter and also a great grey shrike which has decided to (hopefully) over-winter down the road from home.
Two-Barred Crossbills
The two-barred crossbills caught my attention, as there was little else around locally, and they were in a part of the Wyre Forest I'd not explored before. With the help of other interested folks, I was soon peering through a scope at a fine male crossbill, as it fed on one of the cones. Moments later I had it in view through my lens, and despite the distance and low light, bagged some record shots of it.
It was one of maybe 5 around, and amongst a large flock of common crossbills. Best views of these I've ever had.
They soon dispersed, along with some friends I'd bumped into up there too, and I was left hoping the flock would return. After about an hour, I decided to head back to the car, but along the way saw a small flock of commons feeding, so hung around an area and hoped.
My luck was in, they flew over to where I was waiting, and the two-barred crossbills joined them.
Much closer views this time, though typically they were on the wrong side of the tree.
And I took the chance to get some shots of the common crossbills too - wasteful to ignore them!
Velvet Scoter
The next bird to tempt me was a male velvet scoter, seen over in Leicestershire. I had managed to get shots of a female earlier in the year, but the male is much more of a striking looking bird. A birder wandering away from the reservoir kindly explained where he'd seen the scoter, and it meant a long(ish) walk around the edge to the other side to view.
Alas after driving over in sunny conditions, the weather had deteriorated and the water was grey and choppy. Even so, seeing the scoter so close up was a treat.
It gradually moved across the reservoir which was good because the water was calmer over the other side, and it was on the way back to my car!
Watching it feed gave me an idea. It seemed to dive down, maybe 75 yards from the shore, and chase its prey under the water, surfacing much closer in each time. Kneeling in wet mud and goose droppings (lovely) I waited by the water's edge and hoped.
It appeared right in front of me.
Would have been nicer to have had some decent light, but I was pretty pleased with the images of it.
Redwings
Bramblings have arrived in good numbers again, and whilst I was hoping to get some half decent shots of those, I had a look around the immediate area and found a small cul-de-sac with flocks of redwings feasting on some berries in a hedge.
With good light for once, I was able to take dozens of shots at close range of these lovely winter thrushes, plus blackbirds too.
Definitely my best redwing shots to date.
And rather festive looking too!
And I got a brambling in the end too...
Great Grey Shrike
The great grey shrike was reported some days back and I watched it from the roadside one afternoon, followed by an early start to watch from dawn. I've seen several of them now and had very good views of one at Napton some years back. They're flighty subjects if approached, but as they cover (usually) quite a large area, if you position yourself within range, hide and hope, you might get a good view. After taking a long route to the area, to deliberately avoid the bird, I set up behind a thorn bush and waited.
The bird seemed to favour the fields near the road, but had a larder within one of the thorn bushes, to which it would return to, every so often. It wasn't bothered by buzzards, herons or kestrels, but the magpies liked to mob it.
After about 3 hours I got some reasonable views, but the light was in the wrong direction really, and I rarely got a close, clean view.
When it wasn't being chased by magpies, it got scared off by other folks in the fields, which was annoying but often the case in this game!
Aside from trips to local reserves, I've been kept in by the weather of late, so anything caught in sunshine is a bonus. Still no sign of any shorties yet, though they often don't appear until February, so still time yet.
Nothing else to say other than hope you all have a great 2014! Happy New Year!!
The beauty of Nature's Feast's Twist feeders is that you can easily see which food offering within them is proving most popular with the birds. Hence, when Nature's Feast asked me to test out three of their seed blends, I already had an idea of how to do it.
I was given:
* High Energy No Mess 12 Seed
* Supreme 8 Seed Blend
* Everyday 4 Seed Blend
I have two Twist feeders, so put the 8 and 4 seed blends into two sections of each, and for the third section of each, filled one with the High Energy mix, and the other with a supply of black sunflower seeds.
Then it was simply a case of observing the feeders, which at this time of year isn't that easy, when you go out to work or with the Festive season approaching, have to attend get-togethers, away from home.
I'm quite lucky with the array of birds that visit my garden. I generally see decent numbers of house sparrows, blue, great, coal and long-tailed tits, green, bull, gold and chaffinches, nuthatches, robins and dunnocks, wrens and goldcrests, blackbirds, starlings, collared doves, wood pigeons, song thrushes, magpies, jays, carrion crows, plus at the moment, a most welcome pair of blackcaps.
Last winter, I found that the High Energy Supreme mix from Nature's Feast attracted a siskin to my garden for the first time, so I had high hopes of spotting something new with these mixes.
Unsurprisingly, the High Energy No Mess mix went first. It was popular with finches, tits, robins and the nuthatches, though that made a change from them taking several black sunflower seeds each visit, before darting off into the apple trees at the rear of the garden to stash them.
The 8 and 4 seed blends were a hit with the sparrows mainly, and when I tried some of it on the tray feeders, it was taken by the greedy wood pigeons and collared doves over a few days.
I think at this time of year though, when the bite of winter hasn't yet set in, the birds still have other food sources around, so aren't so reliant on the food we put out. To test this theory, after the 4 and 8 blends had been consumed from the Twist feeders, I refilled with a mix from another supplier, to see how that fared. It would appear to be even slower to be taken, as it's been out there for almost 2 weeks now, and is not in need of being refilled.
So based on this rather unscientific test, the 4 and 8 blends, are less popular than the high energy ones, but in my experience, better than similar mixes available elsewhere.
Having found a local stockist of their products, I hope to test more over the winter, when the weather deteriorates and the birds are visiting the feeders more often, to see if these new blends, as well as the one from last winter, attract siskins again, and maybe something unusual. A redpoll would be nice again.
Disclaimer: Images used for this blog are mine and from my garden, but from before this test took place. Had such dull weather during the test that I couldn't get anything worth airing.
After the warmth of Lindos, the following weekend's trip to Norfolk was back to earth with a bang. While it wasn't as cold as I have experienced on the east coast, it certainly wasn't t-shirt and shorts weather, as I'd acclimatised to over there! The plan was to meet with Steve and Ann at Titchwell, but I couldn't resist calling into Thornham on the way, and as it turned out, neither could they, as we bumped into them at the car park!
Steve spotted a spoonbill out on the marshes which gave us a fright, when it started to fly towards us. Neither of us had our cameras on us, and after a dash back to grab them, we managed to pick the wrong channel to watch, as it flew past us down the other one, and off into the distance. Swine!
At Titchwell, we were slightly disappointed to see the water level in the freshwater marsh quite high, which favours the wintering ducks, and pushes all the waders into the distance. Near the first hide were teal and wigeon, but just too far off were 100s of golden plover, mostly snoozing with their heads tucked under a wing.
Wandering down to the beach, we tried to see what a few groups of birders were peering at through their scopes on the sea. Even walking down to the mud and rocks, closer to the shore didn't help - maybe I need to invest in a scope? No, that's something else I'd have to carry! We eventually worked out that there was a long-tailed duck out there, but given the views of them I'd had in Scotland, I didn't bother with any photos. Closer to us were the usual waders, including grey plovers, though only in winter plumage.
As usual, both Steve and I kept an eye on reports coming in from Twitter and Bird Guides etc, and several reports of a black redstart down at Cley Spy tempted us away from the beach, though not before we witnessed several dozen huge flocks of winter thrushes coming in over the sea. Quite a remarkable sight.
At Cley Spy (Glandford) we quickly found the black redstart which was perched on a roof of one of the buildings in the yard. Light wasn't great and sadly it soon relocated to another building, too far off to photo.
While Steve and Ann headed back to stock the 'van up, Dad and I tried the owl site. Unlike last year, the barn owl chose only to appear after the light had completely gone (maybe it had assumed Kate was with us again?). It was also joined by a short-eared owl, but even at ISO 3200 I couldn't get anything worth even airing on here. Good to see though.
After a good evening out at the Lifeboat, we sank back into the usual habit of visiting the harbours, with Brancaster being most productive this time. Work is being done on the sea defenses at Thornham, so it was somewhat restricted for wandering around. As well as the usual turnstones at Brancaster, we saw more grey plovers, brent geese, godwits, little egrets, curlew and quite a few skylarks.
With brightening conditions, we headed down the coast to Glandford again to catch up with the black redstart, which was still around.
With slightly windier weather it had taken to sheltering on the sides of the buildings, amongst the tiles.
Its feathers certainly seemed to match the tiles!
Based in Hunstanton, we tried a new pub which has sprung up since last year, only to find a 45 minute wait to be even seated, so diverted to another pub / club on the front, which served Adnams and also some hearty grub, which was very reasonably priced.
Waking to rain the following morning, I dragged Dad out just to see if anything was around. If you don't look, you don't see. As we drove along the coastal road, I caught a fleeting glance of what I thought might have been a harrier perched up, and decided to go have a second look. Not a harrier but a crow, and in order to get safely back on to the road from the field I was in, I had to drive further into it... and spotted something moving at speed on some bales of hay.
A stoat!
What fortune! I only ever seem to see these for a split second and they're gone, but this one seemed to be slightly insane, almost turning itself inside out as it changed direction so radically.
If only it had been brighter (raining at the time) so I could have attempted to get a shot of it leaping.
Sadly, by the time Steve could join us the stoat had vanished, and despite visiting the site several times, we never saw it again. However, it did tempt us to look in the surrounding fields, instead of focusing solely on the harbours. And what a good move that was. We saw red-legged partridges, hares, marsh harriers, yellowhammers and many other birds.
One marsh harrier we saw was sat in the middle of field eating something, which turned out to be a squirrel, from what I can tell.
And in most fields, there appeared to be several hares, mostly distant. Amazing how they blend into the vegetation - whilst photographing one, another suddenly appeared much closer, and legged it off into the hedge before I could grab a shot. I think Steve and Ann revisited the area frequently after we'd left and enjoyed great success with the hares.
Alas we were only there for a few days, and spent the last evening hoping for some barn owl action. None came, but we did see loads of little egrets flying over, to roost elsewhere. Maybe 200+ over the 2 hours we were waiting.
Our final morning was spent initially on Hunstanton esplanade in hope of some waders, but the tide was too high, and then over at Brancaster harbour. A little egret stalked the shallows; maybe one of the flocks seen at dusk.
With the light fading, and it becoming too difficult to photo anything, let alone the turnstones in flight, as I was attempting, we said our goodbyes to Steve and Ann, and headed back home.
Another good trip though and while I had planned to return the following weekend, the weather forecast put me off. Thankfully the weather improved after we'd left and both Steve and Ann bagged some wonderful images during their stay.
