Male Emperor Dragonflies in flight

Male Emperor Dragonflies have a busy life,  On sunny days or any day where the air temperature is over twenty degrees these brightly coloured dragonflies will spend very little time perched up,  If you wait to take images of them at rest you will probably give up with frustration long before they stop their long endurance flights.

These flights are spent in constant patrols of their territory battling ferociously with and driving off other Emperor males and looking out for female Emperors which they will mate with on the wing and as you can see by the ware and tear on the wings of this otherwise perfect male that at this rate of wing degradation this one will be lucky to make it to the end of the summer.

So perhaps flight shots are a better way forward with male Emperors and if like me you use long tele-photo lenses you then very soon start to realise that tracking a small compositional area and focusing on the dragonflies erratic flight patterns is also quite frustrating but it can be done and some of my results from today's efforts are posted below.

Stithians Reservoir Bird Portraits

It was wet and windy here in Cornwall today but I went to Stithians Reservoir as planned looking for a recently seen small herd of Red Deer.

Well the deer either saw me coming or had headed off to greener pastures over night so I spent some time working with the mixed bag of small birds at Stithians southern cut-off hide and enjoyed the challenge of capturing portraits of fast and flighty subjects.

Young Blue tit

Young Greenfinch

Chiffchaff

Wren

Male Bullfinch

Female chaffinch

Male Chaffinch

Young Great tit

Kestrel Fledglings stick Together

In this classic shot of four Kestrel together the one nearest to the camera is guarding prey that has just been handed over by its mother.

Kestrel fledglings are not aggressive to each other and will not attack their siblings to gain the prey and the one with it will now fly off to consume it alone.

The other three stay close together waiting for one of the parent birds to arrive with more prey and eventually they will all get a share,

Three becomes two and these seven week old fledglings are soon down to the last one waiting.

The female Kestrel flies off to hunt for its share of the prey hand-overs and a while later with their prey consumed the siblings have all got back together again waiting for the next round of supplies

Hayle River Valley

It was disappointingly overcast and windy today but the high air temperature down in the Hayle river valley still produced a few interesting subjects

This  Peacock butterfly spent best part of an hour trying to find its best angle to soak up what little penetrating heat that was available by direct sunlight while providing me with some colourful portraits

This female Common Hawker was out and about but spent much of its time parked up waiting for some sunshine and while doing so it provided me with a couple of nice close up portraits.

A pair of Moorhen had just successfully hatched their second brood of chicks and this little chap was taking refuge under raised lily pads while mother collected its lunch

South Coast Peregrine

On today's hot sunny morning a male Peregrine returns to the south cliffs after a long fruitless chase of four Pigeons out over the sea.

Frustrated it makes a fast and difficult landing on the rugged clifftop and pants with its wings held away from its body trying to cool down.

The  cool female Peregrine  shown below has been watching his performance from a shadowed area of the cliffs and seems unimpressed by his lack of success at taking any prey so far today.

Its a tuff life when the prey escapes you but feeling the pressure the male heads on back out searching for slower prey and better luck !

Green Woodpecker Portraits

Above and below are a few more Green Woodpecker portraits captured today.

These birds are very alert and watchful before they move into open terrain to feed and they are often away as soon as they sense anything out of the ordinary such as the sound of  a hidden camera shutter activation.

 So images of Green woodpeckers heading back to field boundary post and often swiftly departing to 'greener pastures'  seemed to become the order of the day.

 

This departing Green Woodpecker image is a composite of three consecutive registered images that have been merged into one frame using photoshop post production.

  

Green Woodpecker feeding fledgling

I revisited St Erth river valley with Martin Yelland again this morning,  Last time we had some success with Greater Spotted Woodpeckers with chicks in the nest and today was to be the time for Green Woodpeckers feeding their fledgling in the treetops.

The  'Greens'  could be seen and heard all around but it was a four hour wait before I got this opportunity to capture the adult feeding the Fledgling.

The adult flew into a tree near to the hedgerow where I was ' hunkered in ' and the real bonus came as the fledgling followed on behind and it was immediately begging to be fed.

My thanks once again to Martin Yellend for giving me the nod relating to the Woodpeckers and to Bill & Jenny for allowing me access to photogragh them !

More Millpool Images

Lily reflection

A large wild Carp swimming just under the surface.

A female Common Hawker clinging to Gorse

A male Common Darter resting on dead wood

A male Golden Ringed dragonfly

And finally a young male Pheasant shows its new iridescent colours forming in the dappled light of woodland undergrowth.