Buzzards on the South Coast

It was a lovely morning on the south coast of Cornwall and I was out on the coast at first light to avoid the madding crowds of Easter tourists.

I was watching a pair of known Buzzards soaring effortlessly over the cliff updraughts when one of them suddenly pealed off and swooped dramatically down to a stash point quite close to me.

I could see the bird rummaging around in the stash and as I waited it emerged with the back end of a young rabbit in its talons.

It went up into a tree even closer to me to eat it but was possible a little disturbed by my single shutter activation's and moved onto a cliff ledge a little further away to finish her meal.

On leaving the cliff she quickly and gracefully used the updraughts to circle back up to join her mate still soaring above the coastline leaving me smiling as I went home to edit my efforts on this very pleasant encounter.

Grey Heron Fishing

While working with the Little Egret in the previous blog at Ryan's Field I spotted a static Grey Heron well hidden in the far bank reed beds and when the Egret exited the scene I turned my attention to the Heron.

It didn' t move a muscle for ten minutes while waiting for me to depart so I moved back slightly behind a gorse bush and the heron gradually inched through the reeds until its head was clear over the water.

I was then able to capture the sequence of images below until the moment when the Heron successfully swallowed its fish.

Little Egret Study

When I arrived at Ryan's Field on the Hayle estuary this morning I could see the above distant Little Egret resting up in the reed beds close to the river bank to the left hand side of the hide.

There was nothing special about that but the intermittent bright sunshine on the fields behind the river was throwing its reflection across the shaded water where the bird was resting to create this green water effect while leaving the egrets own reflection unaffected,

I decided to exit the hide and moved slowly along the river to see what else I could achieve with this bird which as I did so moved out across an adjacent pond to fish,

 I  followed it for around twenty minutes picking off shots of its fishing technique and reflections as I inched closer until with several Three Spin Sticklebacks dispatched it returned to the river bank to rest up again.

Reed Bunting

I went to Stithians southern cut-off  hide PM today to try for better lighting angles and mating shots of the Little Grebe.

They were off over the other side of the cut-off when I arrived so I whiled the time away snapping a male Reed bunting that was very active.

The Male goldfinch were looking immaculate in their punchy coloured mating plumage and a Jenny Wren was thriving on insects caught along the water margins.

The pair of Little Grebe eventually returned across the water and sure enough I achieved some better lighting angles to bring out the darker colours and eyes of these interesting birds but still no mating shots at the moment but it will hopefully happen soon on another bright and sunny day.

The Reluctant Mate

This amazing female Peregrine sits on a close perch point calling her mate who can both see and hear her calls from a little further along the cliffs. He is a proving to be an excellent prey provider as can be seen by her extended and full crop but this morning he seems to be very reluctant to mate.

For the previous hour or so the female had been calling the male and flying to each perch point that he had occupied when he ignored her calls but each time he exited as she arrived.

This evasive behaviour provided me with plenty of pair interaction and flight images as posted below but I was surprised at the males reluctance to mate on this occasion as he had always been very active in the past.

I could still hear the females piercing calls above all else as I walked back to my car to come home, I hoped that they would get it all together later as I fear that the female might end up losing her voice if the situation continues.

Gordon James FRPS   Among many of his talents Gordon was a marine conservationist and excellent underwater photographer for whom I have a high regard,  Just six months ago while battling with cancer Gordon sat on the cliffs of Cornwall with me watching these Peregrine's behaviour and the smile on his face in the above image is akin to how he looked back then and that is how I will always remember him as I follow these birds on-wards .

Yesterday my wife and I travelled to Bath Crematorium to bid Gordon our final Fairwell, 

Little Grebes

Peter Tonkin and I returned to Stithians southern cut-off yesterday morning looking to capture images of a pair of Little Grebe predating on Palmate Newts as we had seen during last spring.

While the faithful Little Grebes were on show Newts were not on the menu yesterday and had been replaced by an abundance of Three Spine Sticklebacks which the grebes caught in large numbers.

Between bouts of feeding the grebes were relaxed and preening near the bank vegetation and the female was calling and displaying to the male to mate so all was looking well for them,

But the grebes didn't have things all to their own liking as a pair of Cormorant came in to fish for the same prey on several occasions sending the grebes into cover in the shallows perhaps if nothing else other than to avoid being on the much larger Cormorant menu themselves