Cornish Kestrels part 32

Our Kestrel chicks are now nearly fully developed and most of their downy plumage has been plucked,  Two of the four are now exercising their wings on a regular basis but space in the nest site is quite restricted as can be seen in the images below, we expect at least two to venture out on their maiden flights in the next couple of days   Happy landings!

More pond Life

Having enjoyed my recent visit to local ponds and with the warm summer weather continuing I decided to revisit the same sites again today as in my previous blog, Dragonflies of varying species were even more abundant than my previous visit and after working with them for several hours I sat back in the shade of the willow trees quietly waiting for another possible Cuckoo sighting, I was in luck and have finished this blog with a sequence of its arrival,

Cockoo landing sequence

Cornish pond life

The continuing summer sunshine is providing perfect weather for pond life around the area, Dragonflies top the list with many species making a good show yesterday, newts, tadpoles and frogs were in abundance and as my wife and I watched as the action progress for several peaceful hours we saw a cuckoo make a graceful swoop over a pond to skilfully take out a female Emperor dragonfly as it was laying its last egg,   To top the show a cycling continental musician appeared from nowhere,  Sat on the bank, played his guitar and sang us a few of his favourite songs,  A very nice way to end the day !

Summer weekend

It has been a super hot weekend here in Cornwall,  Ours was a busy one with Heathers end of college year exhibition opening on Friday evening and lots of visits with family and friends visiting us over the weekend,  But I still managed some very early sunrise images from St Michel's Mount harbour and sunset images around the Botallack coastline and topped them off with two night time star trail composits at the same location,

Cornish Kestrel part 31

Our Cornish kestrel are keeping up their good work supplying their chicks with plenty of prey to sustain their growth rate,  I found that better exposure results could be obtained due to the weather being partially overcast which reducing harsh sunlight,  Playing around with over exposure compensation helped with the lack of contrast within the shadowed nest area,

Crazy or just Cuckoo

Some days just do not seem to go to plan,  Having seen a banded yellow dragonfly on Botallack coastal heath yesterday I decided to do a bit of a tour around various heaths today where dragonflies can often be found around remote ponds etc,  Did I find any , Did I hell, I put it all down to a chilly westerly wind but it is an ill wind that blows no man good and for my persisting efforts I came home with a consolation prise of no less than 90 Cuckoo portraits,  A subject that I had not planned for or ever worked on before so I was an unexpected happy bunny,

Cornish Kestrels part 30

It has been a challenge trying to achieve good images of the kestrel fledglings this year and even trying to get a head count is proving difficult but I did briefly see four in sight today and could also detect that they were being pushed by perhaps one or more fledglings from behind, The images below were taken at the best time with regards to light and sun direction, Even so the central nest area remains in full shade while the outer rocks most of which I have cropped out over expose by the direct sunlight and camera settings used for the shadowed area,   It is still very pleasing to watch the young birds being looked after so well by their hard working mother

Longrock at sunrise

It was a magnificent sunrise on a lovely windless day over the freshly  cut silage fields of Longrock this morning,  I called in looking for Roe deer kids which should be born by now but no show,  I spent some time taking images of young rabbits that were foraging close to the hedgerows with the early sun shining through their ears and sparkling on the dew covered grasses,

A second year doe Roe Deer was next to arrive on the scene which showed some interest in the feeding rabbits before moving along the hedgerow towards me and a bank of Cow parsley that was her favourite feeding station

The following three images are full frame taken using a Nikon 500mm f4 prime lens with a 1.4 converter fitted and my D4s set to DX,

I took around thirty single mirror-up images of this doe before quietly withdrawing  unseen to leave her to feed and arrived back home at 7.30am with that privileged feeling that comes from working with such fine Cornish wildlife,

Cornish Kestrels part 29

As our young kestrel fledglings reach fourteen days old I managed to take my first images of one of them near the front of their obscured nest site as it watched the female kestrel fly off to collect more prey,

Providing nothing untoward happens within the next fourteen days and the adult birds keep up their good work in the supply of prey our young birds will finally fledge to explore the amazing Cornish coastline that will become their home,