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

Other North Coast sightings today

While waiting for prey hand-over and mating activities from the local Kestrel up on the north coast this morning  I spent my in-between time recording other passing local bird life.

These included pairs of White throats and Wren, several early morning Curlew,  A female Peregrine and a Buzzard that both passed by several times and four Cornish Chough two of which landed quite close.

With the above subjects and both mating and prey exchange shots of the local Kestrel in the can !       I finally dragged myself away from some very pleasant encounters

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.

New Subjects & Old

Todays blog is a mix of new and old subjects that I have worked on at Stithians southern cut-off hide,  New to me at this location today were :
                                                    A Meadow Pipit taking a bath.

                                               A Reed Bunting feeding on grass seeds.

                                         A lonesome Coot that looked a little lost

                               Plus old favourites that crop up on a regular basis starting with a foraging Wren

A Redwing in from the fields for a drink

At 400m a Grey Heron predating on a large frog that it had pierced right through its middle and had quite a bit of trouble getting it off his bill and at its end the frog made quite a lump in the Heron's throat   but he didn't look very sorry,

Goldfinch and Wren,

A few portraits of the resident Goldfinch and Wren at Stithians southern cut-off yesterday.

Tehidy birds

It was a fine day here in Cornwall yesterday and I went back to Tehidy Country Park in the company of Peter Tonkin and Bob Sharples,  [ There is always a down side ! ]  We were all looking for portraits of fishing Kingfisher but it was not to be,  We had some good entertainment and images provided by other local birds which included a Gold Crest,  Four lovely Jay, A feisty little Wren that was fishing for fresh water shrimp, A black headed gull in winter colours that wanted the pond all to itself, The pair of resident Moorhen that were busy preening each other, A grey wagtail paid us a short visit, The ever present Mallard and finally it seemed like the rarely present Kingfisher that moved on a lot quicker than it arrived leaving me with just one exit flight shot and thoughts that it didn't like the current 50% cover of duckweed on the pond that was obviously making fishing a lot trickier than other ponds in the area.

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