Stithians 500mm lens test

Due to a foot reconstruction operation and delays in the return of my Nikon 500mm F4 lens from service and repairs I have been out of action for most of the last three months.

Time has healed my foot well during this three months recovery and my 500mm lens was returned safely yesterday so I was keen to get back into action today to check that all was well with the lens.

With high winds and rain I headed for the protection of Stithians reservoir southern cut-off hide where I thought the well stocked feeding station should still be able to provide a good selection of local birds to work on in the rough conditions

First up in poor light came a regular bold female Great Spotted Woodpecker that went onto the peanut feeders without any hesitation while providing me with some good perched shots both on route and before leaving,

The more timid but very photogenic local male woodpecker was next on the scene but he was far more cautious in his approach which tended to provide good off feeder opportunities before he grabbed a few nuts and departed.

A pair of raiding Jay were frequent visitors throughout the morning and they were very quick to clear up the spillage from under all of the feeders.

Other birds included a dozen Magpie that came in on regular raids.  A close busy Little Grebe that never stopped fishing,  A hungry juvenile Wood Pigeon,  A fine male Bullfinch and finally a gang of feeder raiding Long Tailed Tits

And ' The one that got away '  was a recently rare sight of a Water Rail that never quite came out of cover far enough to gain a good portrait image but all said it was good to be back behind a well serviced lens once again !!

Little Grebe predating on a male Palmate Newt

A Little Grebe surfaces from a dive having caught a lively male Palmate Newt.

Holding it behind the head it thrashes the newt against the surface water breaking its neck.

Its game over for the newt as the grebe dispatches it down the hatch and is immediately off looking for another one.

On the same visit to Stithians Southern cut-off I watched the water movement as it ran off of the back of a Canada Goose as it completed   'A Wash & Brush-up '

I finished off  this pleasant visit with an up close and personal portrait of a colourful male Bullfinch

The Tehidy Tyrant

This male mute swan which I have named as the ' Tehidy Tyrant ' is part of a territorial pair on Tehidy's main pond,  The pair have a problem that as many as twenty to thirty other swans are attracted to this pond by the daily hand-out of food from park visitors so they keep on returning.

The male demonstrates almost constant daily aggression to the other swans singling them out one at a time to corner and attack and during my visit it chased one out of the pond and along the entire pond walkway into the woods where it stood an top of the other exhausted and shocked bird peaking relentlessly at its head, eyes and neck.

I have seen this sort of attack in other locations before and if not stopped it can result in the more submissive bird being killed or blinded so a little intervention was required to separate these birds.

Other subjects encountered included :

There were five resident Little Grebes present on Tehidy's big pond yesterday and they seemed to never stop fishing successfully for Three Spined Stickleback and its a wonder that the fish stocks manage to reproduce quickly enough to survive.

Moorhen were abundant both in and out of the water and a lone Jay was perched watching to see where the resident squirrels hid their peanuts with a view to raiding them later.

It would be difficult to ignore the cheeky Squirrels or the Xmas Robin at Tehidy both of which will quite happily take nuts directly from visitors and posing for photos comes as standard behaviour.

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.

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