Gone Fishing!

With wildlife photography subjects being a bit thin on the ground at the moment and the tourists flooding into Cornwall, My photography has taken a bit of a back seat for the school holiday period and the ' Gone Fishing' is up, with the back water of Millpool providing a lovely off the beaten track location for fishing and a bit of Kingfisher and Dragonfly spotting,  The first image below shows yours truly relaxing on the pool side with Trusty friend 'Woody' carrying out float watching duties:

The next shot show me with one of my 'Fish of the Day' poses

The following three portrait pics are of my finest three fish caught yesterday which are Perch, Golden Rudd and Roach respectively,  all very relaxed and a fine way to avoid 'The Madding Crowds'.

There are Carp in this pool that dwarf the fish species that I have caught so far so watch this space for some larger fish during the next few weeks !!

The magic of Millpool

It is not often that I visit an area that I have not seen since moving to West Cornwall,  but the Magic of Millpool seems to have avoided my attention over the last seven years but my visit was a very pleasant surprise in an area that can only be described as beautiful unspoilt back-water perhaps unseen by many Cornishmen and never by most annual visitors,  The charm of the ponds is complimented by the local wildlife some of which I photographed early AM  before breakfast a few days ago

I returned to the pond and one of my juvenile hobbies early Am today armed with a rod and reel and a day ticket to try my luck with the fish in this well stocked pond and had a lovely day reminiscing over some of my old fishing exploits,  As a bonus I had not quite forgotten all of my old fishing skill and ended up with a count of eleven fine one pound + fine Roach in my 40cm landing net and of course the story of ' The one that got away'  Happy Days !!

Evening Butterflies

Having watched David Attenborough promoting a National Butterfly Survey on the news yesterday morning my wife Heather decided to take part in the fifteen minute survey so during the early evening we took a stroll along the River Hayle at Townshend and during the full hour that we spent there I snapped away at anything that moved in the air or water and was quite pleased with the portfolio of eight Butterflies and Moths that are posted below,

 Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly

Worn Comma Butterfly

Downed Small Magpie Moth under attack by water boatman

Red Admiral Butterfly on Buddleia

Small White Butterfly on Buddleia

Wall Brown Butterfly

Six Spot Burnet Moth

Speckled Wood Butterfly

Inflight sex can be risky

No I'm not referring to any attempt to join the 'Mile High Club' over the Atlantic here, Just relating to Dragonfly life on one of our local ponds where I watched an aerial mating go wrong yesterday,  As this pair of Emperor Dragonflies linked up in a wheel formation it all seemed to go haywire and the pair crash landed in the pond,  I took eighty four images of them trying to escape the drag of the water over the next 30 seconds or so during which time the will to mate was so strong that they remained locked in the wheel position but it all ended OK when the wind eventually blew them both against a small group or reeds at which time they released each other to escape up the stems,  The male looked all set to give it another go but the female flew off leaving him to consider any improvements he might make to his 'Inflight sex skills' !

Early AM and late PM

Early Am today came with a lovely sunrise that proved to be short lived as it was devoured by cloud cover with in twenty minutes but while it lasted over our Longrock  Roe deer fields I was able to capture three Doe Roe deer in the company of the same buck that was showing two days ago.

The cloud cover lasted well into the afternoon but I did finally pop off down on to the Lizard peninsula at Windmill farm looking for Dragonflies and common Lizards,  The boardwalk lizards gave me a hard time for best part of an hour and at no time did I achieve a clean shot of the two I worked on,  Female Emperor Dragonflies were far more productive and as they laid their eggs on sparse surface pond weeds I was able to catch a few nice reflections some of which are posted below,

I also took a complete sequence of a pair of Emperor Dragonflies aerial mating, crash landing in the water in a wheel formation and eventually hauling themselves out of the water onto a reed that a light breeze blew them against,  I need a little more time but hope to publish them AM tomorrow,

As I was packing up to leave Windmill farm I noticed a pair of meadow pipit that were predating on the abundant local grasshoppers, They seemed to habitually land on the same fence post prior to delivering their prey to their nest creating an opportunity that could not be ignored,  I took several shots from my current position at around twenty metres with the birds back lit, Some were quite pleasing soI decided it was worth setting my camera up on remote shutter release with the sun behind and the relevant fence post at a minimum of 3.5m to achieve a full frame image of the bird front lit,  One original image is followed by one remote image posted below,

Dragonfly all sorts

It was good to see the sun again following several overcast wet days,  Several species of dragonfly were showing well on the river Hayle at Townshend bridge and the final two images posted were taken on a brief visit to Millpool ponds,

Male Golden Ringed Dragonfly

Male Broad-bodied Chaser

Female Darter Dragonfly

Female Emperor Dragonfly

Large Red Narrow-wing Damselflies above and below

Longrock Roe Deer

Our Longrock Roe Deer have not been showing to well this summer and it is has been disappointing not to have seen more than three deer together or any evidence of any kids this year even though at least two pregnant females were sighted in the early summer,  Perhaps to much local disturbance with local road works and traffic congestion has been keeping them under cover or driving them off to quieter areas,  I was also surprised to see that both deer sighted this morning are already starting to lose their summer colours but just seeing them early AM is always a good start to my day!

Narrow-winged damselflies

Good sunny weather has brought out the Narrow-winged damselflies along the banks of the river Hayle in cornwall over the last couple of days,  I caught up with a few of them near Townshend bridge this morning, The top shot below is a Large Red Damselfly and the rest are single and mating common Blue Damselfly