Longrock Roe Deer at sunrise

With a clear early morning sky and sunrise at 5.30am it had to be a good morning to check out our local Roe Deer at Longrock,  I arrived just as the first rays of sunlight spread over the far side of the field and a fine doe jumped out from the woodland cover,

Once the female started moving around to feed on the grasses and hedgerow I could clearly see  from the image below that she was heavily pregnant and should be ready to give birth in the next couple of weeks

I watched her grazing for a while and could see her eyes and ears pick up as she heard something moving farther along the woodland hedgerow and a few minutes later out popped one of her last years kits,

All of our Roe Deer now have fine new summer coats that look lovely in the morning sunshine and my parting shot was taken as the mother moved along the field to rejoin her offspring

I came away leaving them to enjoy their morning and drove home contemplating the delights that I had experienced in previous years when the new kids finally arrive.

Stithians today

There were a couple of birds present at Stithians southern cut-off hide today that I had not worked with at this location before. The first was a very shy Jay that seemed to arrive at the same time as the male Great Spotted Woodpecker which was not impressed and departed post haste,  The Jay seemed concerned about the hide so I closed all but one small viewing slot and waited quietly and it slowly moved out of cover enough for a clear image and eventually on to the ground to forage under the feeders. Nice bird !

My second new photo opportunity came from a very active Wren which I have seen here before but this was the first time that it spent long enough to achieve the  portrait image below.

 

There was no sight or sound of our usually busy and often noisy Little Grebes out on the water but there was a lone Cormorant fishing and I wondered was there a connection or a threat by the Cormorant's presence to the Little Grebes,  Checking along the margins I found the answer in a very quiet Little grebe hiding within the reeds

As soon as the Cormorant had finished fishing and departed the grebes were back on the case and soon catching plenty of Sticklebacks again

Other resident birds were showing as usual and it was nice to see a Goldfinch feeding on Pussy Willow instead of sunflower hearts

Of which the Reed Bunting below seems to have had more than his share

This image of the male Great Spotted Woodpecker was taken as it was stretching its neck to check out the unappreciated  arrival of the above Jay

Ryan's field

The Eric Grace memorial hide is just a ten minute drive away from my home,  Its a great location for regular rare sightings,  I also use it quite often on wet days when the wind is blowing south-east through to south-west as the hide and the tidal field water remain protected and calm in these conditions,  Today was one of those days and I popped round to the hide at first light, 

Light levels were low but very few locations would have yielded calm water reflections in the current weather conditions on subjects such as this foraging Redshank,

As the light levels improved  a little I worked on this fine black-tailed Godwit as it worked its way along the water margins eventually foraging in front of the hide

A little Egret was the next arrival,  It landed as is quite common place just fifteen meters in front of the hide in fairly heavy rain and went straight into this shake-out  mode to remove water from its very fine and immaculate plumage,  It then went about catching its Breakfast and I went home for mine

Just Passing

Low cloud and Cornish missal closed in over Bartinney down by 14.30 today bringing an end to any chance of Short-eared owl Photography for the day,  Heading towards home I passed longrock fields and noticed a flock of 35 Curlew feeding,  Light levels were low and evening mist was forming which would demand high ISO and slow shutter speed camera exposure settings but I decided to give it a go,

The Curlew stopped feeding,  A sure sign that my presence was rumbled and as I took my first images the entire flock departed but all was not lost,

As the birds went up so did the head of a Roe deer that I had not previously seen hunkered down in the hedgerow behind them

As the deer stood up I noticed that she had already started to moult her winter coat very early which detracted from gaining a pleasing image but she started to scratch around her neck area where the moulting fur was obviously itching and it was nice to catch the moment when she found the right spot

When she finally moved away fifteen minutes later the results of her scratching were very clearly visible but she seemed quite happy as indeed was I and we both went on our way.