Swallows Fledging

Yesterday morning our telephone wire to the house was suddenly occupied by a dozen or so Swallows, many of them young fledglings calling to be fed. I found the second image in my archives; it  was taken on August 5th 2008 and I thought about all the generations that would have visited Toft since Swallows used to nest in our garage (now our bedroom!!). They nested in the garage every year from when we moved 'up the road' in 2000 till the garage was converted in 2013. Since then, there have always been Swallows in the small holding up Mill Lane. After about an hour, they all flew off going south so I guess are starting the long migration.

Projects at RSPB Bempton

A second visit to Bempton cliffs yesterday and I decided to concentrate on a couple of projects. First, trying to show the sea birds among the cliff flowers that form their home during the breeding season. Red Campion, Hogweed, Sea Matweed and Plantain are the predominant flowers. My second project was to try ways of showing the movement of the vast numbers of sea birds in and out of the cliffs. Here time-lapse flight trails show the numbers of birds going in and out of the cliffs.

RSPB Bempton Exploratory Visit

My last visit to Bempton was 13 years ago in 2013 so there are quite a lot of changes in terms of Visitor centre, car parking and the provision of railed viewing areas. It was very busy yesterday but it did not seem crowded and I chatted to bird watchers from many different countries as we tried to spot the Puffins!!. Here just a set of introductory shots to help me plan photography for the subsequent visits though, from experience, the joy of capturing such graceful Gannets and Kittiwakes in flight will still override any other plans.

Bird Walk at Paxton

Our monthly walk at Paxton this morning concentrated on Birds, especially looking out for winter visitors. We did see a large flock of Redwings and several winter duck species - Wigeon, Goldeneye plus a lot of residents (36 species). Good to see all three Heron species (Great and Little Egret and Grey Heron). I spent a bit of time in the Cobham Hide after lunch and photographed a hovering Migrant Hawker.

Work in Progress!!

We still have large numbers of Greenfinches and Goldfinches together with paired Blue and Great Tits visiting our garden feeders so I thought I would have a go at capturing them in flight. Not enough depth of field and/or shutterspeed and definitely need to get a better background!

Paxton Miscellany

A mix of images from an enjoyable day at Paxton looking for fungi (Mycena species and Winter Stalkball) in the morning and walk with friends looking at birds etc in the afternoon 

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