Hooded Merganser

Unfortunately my posts for a short while Will be from my archive whilst my camera is undergoing repairs. The following shots are of a Hooded Merganser I photographed at Slimbridge a few months ago.

The Hooded Merganser is part of the captive stock and not wild. They are a North American species and are short journey migrants. It is thought that the majority of sitings in Northern Europe are escapees from privately owned stock.

Pollution

Note the plastic around the seals neck, our seas are full of rubbish.

A Walk Around Trelissick

On Sunday, Lisa and I did the woodland walk around the outskirts of Trelissick gardens. Lisa photographed the young Squirrel and I took the Chaffinch . The Squirrel was about the size of a Kitten and must have been this years.

Three more from Pendeen

Three more images from Pendeen.

Three more images from Pendeen.

Gannets again

I had another seabird festival at Pendeen as I wanted to improve on the pictures I took of the Gannet in an earlier post. I managed one or two of the Manx Shearwater again, and missed a close shot of a group of Auks. Apart from nose diving off the rock I was stood on I had a good couple of hours. I hope to do some serious sea watching this year.

Swallows And Swallows

The topic of my last blog really revolved around my attempt to photograph a Swallow drinking on the wing, the sublime accuracy they use when skimming the surface with their lower beak just touching the water whilst flying. I really should have included these shots which are all near misses but not bad photo's.

Shoot First and Ask Questions Later

My title refers to the fact that when out in the field taking your pictures you should not check your photo;s other than the histogram for exposure. My bad habit was and sometimes still is to find a shaded place and check what I have captured through the rear screen. This is a bad habit for two reasons, the screen burns your battery power and you miss shots, chck them when you get home.

The following images are again taken on our heath and moorland. I spent some time trying to capture a flight shot of a Swallow drinking on the wing, but with no preparation I had little success. The Swallows also seem to just plummet into the water rather than skim. I guess it was Swallow bathing or cooling rather than drinking. Please click on the image to enlarge


Meadow Pipit

Linnets in flight