Stithians Southern Cut-off

I recently dropped into Stithians Reservoir southern cut-off hide looking for sightings of its illusive Water Rail.  The birds posted here all showed well and kept me busy as they fed at the feeding station and the Water Rail finally made a brief show along the water Margins long enough for me to capture half a dozen shots

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

Spring Colours Count

In the Spring time its the colours that count when male birds are looking for a mate,   At Stitians southern cut-off this morning all of the males were sporting their finest plumage and it seems to be working for the male Great Spotted Woodpecker on the right in the image above as a female moves in to take a closer look !!

This is a great time of the year to capture images of many species of birds at Stithians some of which are shown in the portfolio posted below.

Stithians today

With the water levels at Stithians southern cut-off rising to the level of the bank in front of the hide the Male Kingfisher is gradually moving to perch points a lot closer to the hide to fish so I am hoping for some good results over the next couple of weeks,
                                         
 
  The Long Tailed Tits were showing well and mixing their foraging between local insects and plant shoots and the occasional mass attack on the fat ball feeders,

The female Great Spotted Woodpecker also split her time between fat balls and grubbing under local tree bark and dead wood

The little Siberian Chiffchaff was as busy as ever,

And the greenfinch which looked immaculate yesterday was now definitely now looking the worse for wear with the current morning weather conditions,

Today marks the end of my first Year of producing this blog with just over 250 blogs posted throughout the Year,  I love Cornwall and its wildlife and would like to offer a big Thank You  !! to all of you for showing your interest in this blog  and I wish you a very..........                                                                                                    
                                                                   HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

Stithians yesterday

The most Long -tailed Tits that I have seen at Stithians southern cut-off hide is ten and yesterday they all descended on one very busy fat ball feeder at the same time creating quite a spectacle,

The female Great Spotted woodpecker which is a regular in the trees and nut feeders was foraging on the ground under the feeders, Its the first time that I have seen her feed in this manner and she will need to watch out as this is the preferred attack location of the local male Sparrowhawk,  The male Woody stayed up in the trees perhaps taking on the role as look-out for the female but he looked safer and more interested in digging under the tree bark for grubs,

A fine pair of Greenfinch were heading the pecking order on the sunflower hearts feeder and when all other rivals were seen off they turned on each other,  A Chiffchaff was ever busy picking off insects along the water margins and finally a flighty little Firecrest put in quite a long show in the same area but without coming as close as seen on some occasions for an uncropped image,

Great White Egret at Stithians today

When I arrived at Stithian reservoir this morning I was in formed by Bob Sharples that a rare Great White Egret was showing on the opposite bank from the Stuart Hutching hide so I popped in there first and did the best I could over the several hundred metre distance that the egret was showing,  It did a nice pass of a mature Grey heron on the waterline which was useful for scale and a few minutes later took off and headed north along the reservoir affording me a few flight images,  I took a few shots of around a couple of dozen Lapwing roosting along the near shoreline and moved off to the Cut-off hide.

I re-joined Bob and Peter Tonkin in the cut-off hide and within a few minutes we had a very low flying male Sparrow hawk come in from the water straight through the feeders,  He missed the birds and we all missed the shots and things returned to normal until the Sparrow hawk returned again to perch in the dense but leafless canopy of a waterside tree, It worked its way behind a mass of thin branches and we all complained  but it was still watching the movement of every bird that approached the feeders, The thin stems broke up its form to blend with its horizontally barred chest but those piercing yellow eyes were ever watching for the right opportunity to take prey.

The feeders were busy with pairs of Greater spotted Woodpecker, Bullfinch and my first pair of Firecrest showing within a couple of hours along with a family of Long tailed Tits and four Greenfinch that were constantly calling each other,   An interesting if cold day with two 'firsts' for this year from the Great White Egret and the pair of Firecrest