Water Rail Portraits

The southern cut-off hide at Stithians is well used by wildlife photographers that are attracted to the hide by its star performers,  Up until March this year there was an amazing Water Rail in residence that would come within a few metres of the hide to forage on feeder fall out on a regular basis, this allowed photographer using telephoto lenses to take extremely close portrait images like the first one posted below.

From early March up until today the Water Rail has been off of the Star Performer list but I did here of one seen very briefly at a distance a few weeks ago, anyway from today on it looks as though the show is back on as four of us at the hide today had a very good show for several minutes at a distance of around ten metres during which time the sequence of six images posted below were taken, perhaps the sound of cameras clicking away sent the Water Rail off into the reed beds sooner than it might have otherwise done but if its anything like the last one it will hopefully learn to accept it for the benefits it receives from under the feeder frames.  Happy Days !!