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 !

Close ups of Long Tailed Tits

A squadron of raiding Long tailed Tits suddenly arrived at Stithians southern cut-off feeding station,  For ten seconds they are all on the feeder and in less than one they are all gone but I just managed to capture the last four leaving.

Images below were taken during further lightening raids during the day and I singled out individual birds that did briefly manage to stay still long enough to allow me to capture the moment.

More Great spotted Woodpecker action in my next blog at the same location !

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 !!

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,

A Mix of new and old subjects

Today was a mixture of new and old subjects at Stithians southern cut-off Hide, I did some flight and reflection shots on the local pair of Magpie but in the end I used a perched image from one of their rare visits onto the feeder frames,  One of the old favourite a Grey Heron showed good reflections as it fished in front of the hide,  A bold little chiffchaff came within and pasted the minimum focal distance of my lens at 3.5m and I tried for flight shots on the regular squadron of Long-tailed Tits,  Later in the morning I moved closer to home at Marazion marsh and was surprised to see a guy that had no concept of the reserve or its sign posts as he was walking along the waterline of the Rabbit warren 50m inside the reserve sending birds scattering in all directions,  When challenged he just said ' Look at all the birds flying' and walked off along the causeway presumable  Brain Dead !!   Well I did look at all the birds flying and took a few images of a tight flight formation of around a hundred teal catching about thirty of them within my 500mm lens field of view before they all finally settled down again.  Its an ill wind that brings no man good.