Hunting Short eared Owl

Short Eared Owls were hunting well on West Cornwall high ground during a very brief spell of brighter weather yesterday afternoon.

                                          

With several Owls all hunting in one area aerial disputes almost become common place !

Close Up Portraits Today

With continued poor weather condition again today I headed for some cover at Stithians Southern Cut-off Hide and came away with a good selection of portraits that are posted below.


Female Great Spotted Woodpecker

A trio of busy Long Tailed Tits

A Robin

Male Bullfinch

Gold Crest

A Green finch

A Male Reed Bunting

A Magpie

Hoping to get back on to the Short Eared Owls tomorrow with better weather forecast !

Flying Grey Squirrel

While photographing the Tehidy Jay yesterday I watched a couple of Grey Squirrel using a well placed fallen tree trunk to cross a metre wide stream to gain access to forage for a few peanuts.

Once they found a few they constantly rushed back over the trunk to their side of the stream to bury them in their own patch.

Before I left I went and sat on the trunk mid-stream to see what the Squirrel's reaction would be and  both of them continued to collect nuts and return by impressive long jumps across the stream about six metres upstream from where I was sitting on the trunk.  

I was impressed with their long jumping skills so went back again this morning with a smaller and more versatile 18-200mm lens to capture the images posted in this blog.

The next consecutive sequence of three jumping Squirrel images below shows the content used to produce the forth Montage image of the complete long jump and I was pleased with this result

                                           

Eating peanuts and long jumping are both thirsty work but the Squirrels don't have to go far to find a drink !

Tehidy Jay Landing and Take-off

Tehidy Jay are a pleasure to work with.  In most woods all you usually see is tail ends but here the Jay have learnt that when people walk the woods they often feed the growing Squirrel population.

They have also learnt that when the squirrel are full they still take the peoples nuts and bury them in the woodland leaf litter to eat later.

 The Jay hang around and watch this procedure then help themselves as the Squirrel move out of sight and this particularly clever Jay has rumbled where our Squirrel is hiding its nuts and is taking them out as quickly as the Squirrel can hide them.

                                                              

Grey Squirrel Portraits

I went to Tehidy Country Park looking to capture some action shots of the Jay which are more accepting of people walking around than in your average woods but its very difficult to walk through Tehidy with its large population of Grey Squirrels without taking a few shots so this has become a Grey Squirrel blog and hopefully some Jay action to follow in the next one.

This particular Squirrel that I watched was constantly bringing peoples nut offerings up a sawn off tree trunk close to the footpath and burying them in a central hollow to eat later.

                                            

Back on the footpath the clever Squirrel has found yet another nut to hide !

Stithians Yesterday

A pair of Magpie competing for a hidden stash

A Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Robin move in at the same time to see if the Magpie missed anything

The Female Great Spotted Woodpecker is showing well and produces a couple more flight shots.

I don't know how many peanuts a Jay can steal in one mouthful but this Jay seems to have bitten off a couple more than it can chew !