Longrock Roe deer

It was a dark and dismay morning when I set off for Longrock on the lookout for a pair of Roe deer that had not been showing for the last week so on arrival I was pleased to see them munching away on the lush grass,  They now have fine grey winter coats which tends to make them stand out against the grass but look at the difference in the forth image where the Doe is backed by the matching tree line where they spend the bulk of their time and you would be hard pushed to see them until they move,  This pair of Doe are twins and I first met them on their birth day back on the 19th June 2016 at 4.50 AM when their mother gave birth in this same field very close to the road hedgerow, [ See the bottom image below }  I have not seen their mother around since May of this year when she looked very pregnant again but she seemed to just disappear before giving birth, Hence the reason that I am always pleased to see this pair that are always together after they have been missing for a while.

Working the browse line

At sunrise I came across a pair of doe Roe Deer working the browse line in the fields at Longrock,  Light levels were quite good and the wind was in my favour so I settled behind the hedgerow out of sight of the deer


They worked their way along the opposite hedgerow as I carefully exposed single images of their progress to keep shutter noise to a minimum

Eventually one of the deer moved out into the field getting closer to me and a few minutes later it was joined by the second doe

As they moved closer the inevitable happened,  I usually try to time my shutter firing as road traffic passes which the deer ignore and this drowns out the shutter noise but being an early weekend morning I did not often have that opportunity and the deer both picked up on the sound of my single shutter firing

And that was the end of my shoot, They were off and You don't very often get a second chance with Roe Deer!

Longrock Roe Deer

With three Doe Roe Deer showing well for an hour or so at Longrock this morning it was good to see them joined by a fine mature Buck following the lose of a local buck to road kill just last week,  The weather conditions were overcast and quite drab but when the deer present themselves so well you just have to do the best you can and accept a little grain !

Cornish Kestrel part 24

Vole prey hand-0ver,

Our kestrels have settled into a routine of incubation on the part of the female and prey supply to the female by the male on a regular basis,  In the image below the male returns skilfully displaying his prey as he lands,

 The female takes the offering and departs immediately to consume it on her own

 The male watches her depart then flies off to find his own dinner

This pattern of behaviour will continue until the chicks hatch any day now freeing up both birds to share in hunting and feeding the new arrivals,

Cornish Kestrels part 23

All seems to be going well with our Kestrels,  With the female now half way through incubating her eggs, The male as seen below has been busy bringing in prey,  It seems to be a good year for lizards which are accounting for over fifty percent of kills,

In the shot below the male has delivered prey to the female and waits to see her response ?

And this time he is in luck as the female calls him to mate but they are both facing the wrong way for my camera !

Some times the time you put in gets its reward too, and in this case seven hours after I arrived the Kestrels turned around together to give me the shot below that I had been waiting for,

All good things come to an end and the final shot show the dismount and its now time for the female to get back to her eggs and the male might just catch another lizard before sunset.

Focus on a buck Roe Deer

Focus on a Buck Roe Deer,
This morning was a far brighter morning than yesterday so I called in at Longrock deer field on my way to Marazion marsh for a change of scene,  There were seven deer out grazing on the lush grass,  One buck and six does that all looked fine with the early morning glow shining on their coats,  After taking a few shots I moved on to the marsh to watch the sun rise over the reed beds with lazy morning mist filtering through them forming a lovely setting perhaps for an Otter to swim or a Purple Heron to fly over but not this morning,  I whiled away an hour or so working on amongst other things young bunnies and wall snails ( check out the following blog ) then returned past the deer field again on my way back to my car in glorious sunshine,  The fine young buck featured below was still out grazing in the field close to Newtown lane hedgerow so I reset my kit and snapped away recording its movements for around thirty minutes,

It was grazing while working its way towards me looking very nice with its fur covered new horns and most of its summer coat nearly complete

I smiled when as I took my first frame as he looked up and stamped his feet at the sound of my shutter firing but he could not see me behind the hedgerow

He settled back to grazing and I took the rest of these images in sequence with passing cars so as not to disturb him further and eventually headed for home leaving him in peace

Stithians today

It was a wet and windy start to the day but as I was dropping my wife off in Camborne early AM I decided to spend some time at Stithians southern cut-off,  My first sighting was a noisy pair of Little Grebes,  These birds are incredible efficient predators and once again I watched as they dispatched four Palemate Newt and two Three Spin Sticklebacks in a short space of time

Next to show was a female Pintail that foraged close to the margins

Followed by the pair of resident Magpie that were busy cleaning up around the feeders

Last but not least to show was a rather wet male Great Spotted Woodpecker that decided to play a classic game  of  'Hide and Seek'  as it worked its way up on of the feeder frame supports,

Little grebe predating on Newt

It was a dismal misty morning an Stithians southern cut-off today,  light levels were very low and it was certainly not the morning to take on the challenge of trying for good contrasting images of a dark Little Grebe fishing but I was tempted when one resurfaced reasonably close to the hide with a good sized Three Spin Stickleback in its beak,

There was nothing unusual about this but when it dived again a little later I watched for it to resurface and was surprised to see that this time it had caught quiet a large Newt,

When the bird turned during its struggle to control the Newt it looked like a possible Palmate Newt with mating colours and spots to its belly

It took the grebe far longer to dispatch the Newt by comparison to the fish it had eaten earlier but I have to assume it to fairly common at this location as the busy Little Grebe repeated this exercise again later,  This time it passed the Newt over to its mate that was fishing close bye,

It was nice to watch  the Grebes behaviour and its predation on a subject that was previously unknown to me,  I'll be back on a better day looking to improve on the pictures !

Roe Deer through the year

The first Roe Deer I saw in Cornwall was six years ago which happened while photographing a family of young fox cubs playing in a field opposite the Cheshire Home at Marazion,  A Doe Roe deer suddenly appeared from the hedgerow,  First studied and then slowly walked right up to and smelt the young fox cubs before moving along the hedgerow to browse,  Ever since that day I have worked on many deer at this location and had as many as eleven present in the field on one occasion.  You have to be an 'early bird' and good field skills are required if the deer are not to be quickly spooked,  If they know you are there they will go,  I have learnt to consider wind direction for my scent, Use high hedgerows for cover, Keep still and quiet,  avoid bright clothing and strange as it might sound I take my images as traffic passes,  The Deer take little or no notice of passing traffic and the noise drowns out my shutter action, Adopting this manner I have worked with the deer for up to two hours and photographed them from just four meters away on the opposite side of the hedgerow whilst hardily daring to breath !

These three Doe are sporting their thick grey winter coat and one of them has picked up on the sound of my shutter action,  The trick is not to take any more images until she starts to feed again.

The resident Buck patrolling his patch

A feeding Doe in summer colours Taken from just six meters

Second year young Buck and Doe play mating

Doe Roe deer with day old twin kids