The brave & the timid?

A sub-adult drake Red-crested Pochard has been regularly taking bread at the Apex park in Burnham-on-sea. Now, this usually points to a captive bird that has escaped & is living life in the wild. However, this individual has no rings on its legs (usual in captive wildfowl collections) & the wings are full & not showing signs of being clipped. I personally would have thought it highly unlikely for a ring to come off on its own, but may have been removed by the owner prior to deliberate release. The other alternative is that it is a remarkably brazen wild bird from the continent or even the Cotswold water park, where there are quite a few. Whatever its origins are, it is still a beautifull duck.

A visit to Greylake RSPB reserve on the levels produced a bucketfull of Common Snipe, close to the hide where they probed the soft mud for invertibrates. Their striking markings provide a cryptic camouflage when amongst the sedge & reeds. Seldom are they seen close up & in photographic range, out in the open.

An opportunity not to be missed.

Purple patch continues.....

Cheddar res has come up trumps yet again. An afternoon spent there on New years day provided a bit of excercise & some (very!) fresh air.

On arrival at the Shipam road car park, i could not see any birders or photographers. Could it be that my target bird(s) of the day had left? The breeze at the top of the ramp to the footpath was biting, but the sun was shining, so not all bad.

I scanned with my bins from beside the tower & immeadiatly spied a small Grebe, some way out & not really identifiable at such a range. A quick photo viewed at 100% showed a Little grebe, not my target species.

After 30 mins scanning the vast coot flock & the ducks in front of the sailing club to no avail, i decided to go around to the other car park near the Axbridge tower. There were a couple of birders over there showing some interest in something.

It was the Ring-necked duck! It was doing its best to hide amongst the rafts of Tufties & Pochard & was quite hard to pick out with its head tucked under its wing.

A fellow photographer mentioned that the birds i was interested in, had flown back towards the Cheddar end shortly before i had got there.

Another birder that had walked from the Cheddar end said he had seen one in front of the sailing club. Another scan of the margins again prooved fruitless. I decided to have one last attempt over by the Cheddar tower.

The Little Grebe had now miraculously morphed into two. Again no sign of my birds. Might as well call it a day i thought. Then a birder that had walked the entire circumference said that i should walk around the res for about 200m & that a bird was diving & feeding close in. Off i went. I scanned again, & this time i was rewarded with a distant "blob" on the surface. Smaller than the accompanying Coots. That was it, my target bird. I moved closer as it dived & positioned myself where i thought it would surface. Then, there it was, about 50m out, a single Black-necked Grebe. The D2x fired away & i was glad to have the 1.7x teleconverter on the 600mm as well. During the next half hour, i shot almost 4GB of images, moving as the Grebe dived & was rewarded with frame filling shots of this scarce little bird.

There has been reports of up to 4 birds being present & also of the rarer Slavonian grebe. This one however was all i needed!

Red letter days!

Every now & then you hit a purple patch, when every thing falls into place with very little effort (at least on your behalf). The last couple of days have been like that for me. On sunday a drive around the levels looking for "winter swans" started off slowly with just a few mutes, here & there. I eventually got to Sharpham, where i had heard reports of Whoopers being present with a large herd of Mutes. I found the field & was delighted to find that there were 2 groups of whoopers (2 adults & 3 juveniles & a further 2 adults) amongst the 50 or so commoner mutes. For those of you not in the know, Whoopers are winter visitors from Siberia & more recently Scandinavia. They are however rarely seen in Somerset & most winter on the Ouse washes, Scotland & the north west.

Top: Adult Whooper swan

Middle: Juvenile Whooper

Bottom: Mute swans landing after being disturbed further up the field.

After Sharpham, i drove out over Kings sedgemoor where i found a pair of Ruff in a field, along with Starlings, fieldfares & a few Lapwing.

Stopping off in the carpark of the Greylake inn & looking across the road into a grass field, i noticed a large flock of Golden plover amongst the Lapwings & Starlings. A few Dunlin also put in a brief flyby.

Today was even better! Cheddar reservoir is gaining a bit of a reputation for turning up good birds. The latest "batch" have included, Great-northern & Black-throated diver, Ring-necked & Ferruginous duck & Red-crested pochard. My main target for today was the Black-throated diver, a bird i have only seen once before, miles out on Portland harbour. As i walked up the ramp onto the footpath that runs around the res, i noticed another photographer running along & then putting his gear down & waiting. A quick scan with the bins showed nothing but water. Then as if on cue, up it popped not 20m from me. For the next half hour it slowly made its way towards the sailing club. As it dived, i tried to get in front of it & waited for it to surface. I was never far enough along & it always seemed to pop up right next to me!

A wander around the res towards the sailing club, found me scanning the large flock of Pochard, Coots & Tufted duck for my secondary targets. Straight away i found the Ring-necked duck & shortly afterwards, i was put onto the female Red-crested pochard by a nearby birder.

Top: Ring-necked duck & common Pochard

Top center: Ring-necked duck

Bottom two: Red-crested Pochard.

On the way back from the res, i stopped off atWesthay moor, where a Yellow-browed warbler had been found a couple of days before. After a wait of no more than 10 mins & in brilliant sunshine, it appeared along the edge of the road, flitting in & out of the overhanging brambles. Using manual focus, i managed a few shots, some of which were sharp & in focus!

Sign of the winter to come?

Coastal sites usually turn up a few "special" winter migrants every year, Shore lark, Lapland bunting & of course Snow buntings. Unfortunately, Shore lark is not very likely in this part of the world, Lapland bunting not impossible & Snow bunting, more or less annual.

Stolford, near Hinkley point turned up a pair about 1 week ago, but there could have been as many as 8 of these visitors from the far north, strung out along the shingle between Stolford & Steart.

My visit yesterday afternoon in the weak wintery sunshine, yielded just the 1, a few hundred meters east of the car park.

A very confiding little bird that allowed a very close approach. It was not confiding enough however, to put up with the spaniel that was running riot across the marsh though & was flushed a number of times along with the resident Pied wags & Meadow pipits. The owner was quite pleased that the bird had gone (read flushed by her dog) so she did not have to walk behind our tripods!

With the entire marsh available, why did she feel the need to disturb the bird & excercise her dog where we were? I sometimes think common sense is a thing of the past! Rant over.......

Anyway, Myself & Tim Taylor managed to relocate the bird & get a few more shots before the light went altogether.

Camera traps- good or bad?

A lot has been said on the net about the use of remotely fired cameras to obtain images, especially when the images have been entered into prestigious photography competitions. For the last couple of years, images that were taken when the photographers were not present, have won the Wildlife photographer of the year awards. Should they have won? Personally I think not. The skill & dedication of photographers that put in the hours, often in harsh conditions to get the shot, should get the credit they deserve.
Such automated techniques do have a place though. I have recently got hold of a wildlife spy camera, not for winning any competitions though. I plan to use it for reconnaissance. To scout areas, to see what is about & at what times of day or night. It will be invaluable for checking badger setts in the spring & save a lot of waiting around.
The model I have purchased is the 8MP version shown here:
http://www.flyonthewall.uk.com/infrared-ccd-wildlife-camera-with-dvr-p-252.html
Capable of taking colour stills & video in daylight or black & white in complete darkness, thanks to it’s built in infra-red LED flash. Images & video are stored on a SD card (not supplied) & can be viewed in situ on the 2.5" screen inside the waterproof case. A USB & TV connection lead are supplied along with an adjustable tree strap, rechargeable lithium ion battery & charger. Battery life as stated on the website is up to 2 weeks depending on activity. I have had the camera on site for about a week at the time of writing, only firing at night (approx 70 photos so far) & have not had to recharge yet. Quality of the infra-red jpegs are not great, but you can easily identify any creature that wanders in & fires the camera via the distance adjustable passive infra-red (PIR) trigger. Each photo or video has the date & time embedded enabling regular patterns to be found ready for an ambush with the D2X! That’s the plan anyway.......

Catching up...

During the last week, i have been able to get out & about a bit more as things return back, more or less, to normality. An afternoon at Catcott lows allowed me to catch up with the 3 long staying Glossy ibises that have made the SWT reserve home (for now).

One of the birds has a large leg ring that can be read from quite a distance, bearing the number "N4C". I have been told that this bird was ringed (or is it rung?) in Spain.

Other waterfowl present included these Wigeon, a species which although relatively common on the levels, i have very few images of. More to do with me ignoring the usual than through any difficulty! Also present were flocks of Lapwing, which lift at the slightest distubance from a percieved threat, in this case a Grey heron.

A later visit to Greylake RSPB reserve saw a few more Shoveller (top) & Teal (bottom) shots in the bag to bolster those files.

New beginings

Those of you that know me personally will know that my partner Lindsay was expecting a baby.

Well here she is, introducing Jessica kim. Born on 22nd October weiging in at 8lbs 8oz.