My Catch of the Day

An Osprey moves out from the cover of the densely tree lined banks on the south side of the river at Devoran Quay where following a long cold windswept wait for its arrival it rewarded me with my first Osprey hunting photos,  It circled over the water several times searching for fish which when sighted were attacked immediately,  I was ready for this but was totally amazed how hard the bird hit the water penetrating its head, body and feet a foot or so under the water leaving only its wings above in a huge splash zone which created a bizarre image that fits nicely into the sequence of images posted below,  It took the Osprey three attempts before it caught a Mullet and its struggle to exit the drag of the water was something to behold,  It then flew casually back into the tree canopy to devour its 'Catch Of The Day' at a leisurely pace and I headed for home to download my first ever fishing Osprey images,

An amazing encounter with such a powerful Bird of Prey.... Happy Days !!!

Kingfisher still showing well

Our local Kingfisher are still showing well with the male and female both seen together during the day,  I repeated the same photographic procedure as described in my recent blog Kingfisher Behaviour and was pleased to capture the sequence of images below showing the Kingfisher dealing with what starts with a very lively small fish that received a severe whacking against the tree stump and very quickly became lunch,  I was 100 metres away on the opposite side of the pond working by remote shutter firing and could not really appreciate the skills of the kingfisher's dispatch until downloading the images this evening

Tehidy Wildlife Country Park - Part Two

Back on the 19th August I posted a small blog relating to a Bank Vole sighting at Ryan's Field in Hayle, At that time I didn't know the difference between a Bank Vole and a Water Vole to ID my subject,  Whilst I read up on the difference between the two I also came across information stating that Bank Vole could swim and surface dive and should not be mistaken for Brown Rats that could swim but not surface dive,  Well if that is the case nobody informed the Brown Rat that I watched surface diving today,

Enter my Brown Rat

Its picked up on the smell of the small pond in the car park at the entrance to Tehidy and it looks like its feet need a bit of a clean up,

It enters the water from a fallen tree

The rat swims out across the pond and then it happens!!  It surface dives and I can see it swimming underwater and manage to catch its sense of enjoyment (seen below) when it resurfaces several metres from where it went under,

It climbs up into pond margin vegetation looking a bit like  ' A Drowned Rat ' but was otherwise very happy,

After posing for a few more images the Rat was raring to go again,

It dived from a thin branch back into the water again and that was the last that I saw of it

It had been nice to share the natural pleasure of Tehidy in perhaps the unlikely company of a Brown Rat which I am sure would not have happened had I not been at a location where the public and wildlife are subjected to closer contact on a daily basis.

Tehidy Wildlife Country Park - Part one

Tehidy Wildlife Country Park attracts many species of wildlife and visitors alike,  I go nowhere near it during any school holiday periods but when the madding crowds of tourists have all gone home it is always worth a visit,  Any wildlife that has not bailed out during the busy tourist time slots has learnt to tolerate having people around them that bring food offerings and will not flee from the occasional local photographer as the image below demonstrates very well

         

The resident squirrels are a delight and so photogenic to work with

One of three Little Grebes present today puts on a log rolling display

A  Cob Mute Swan was busy demonstrating his superiority around the big pond

This Moorhen seemed to show an interest in my camera as apposed to screaming off across the pond in a mad panic

For my first time I watched this crow with its head underwater successfully fishing for water snails

Not to be ignored this female Kingfisher showed and fished at several locations during my visit and I watched in surprise as a pair of Mallards mated in the water of the main pond !!

For something a little different check out Tehidy Wildlife Country Park - Part two also published today

Kingfisher Behaviour

During the last couple of days I have been watching the fishing behaviour of a female kingfisher at a set location on a local pond and today I decided to set up my camera on a tripod and use remote camera firing to get close enough to record her movements,  The weather was very up and down with rain and storms one minute and bright sunshine the next so I had to use a degree of exposure automation to compensate for lost control while working away from the camera,   I had been under cover for around four hours when the kingfisher repeated its habits of the previous days and I remotely fired off around 150 images over the coarse of about four to five minutes to record the behaviour shown below,

                                       Portrait of the Kingfisher arriving prior to fishing,

Returning to post with its first fish

Resettles at the same perch point

Shaking the water out of its beak before swallowing the fish

                                                                         Down the hatch !

                                 A complete body shake-out to remove trapped water droplets

                           And a final beak clean off before repeating the whole exercise over again

Fishing for wildlife

Fishing is a sport that goes very much hand in hand with wildlife encounters,  Early mornings and late evenings come up with lots of wildlife opportunities around the water line. Swallows are in abundance during the evening, skimming the water in numbers as they flock up prior to migration,  last night I watched as a female sparrow hawk took on the challenge of trying to catch one on two occasions. It failed but what an amazing spectacle to witness.The resident Kingfisher often puts in an appearance fishing from favoured perch points both AM and PM . The Moorhen both young and old have taken very kindly to hand outs of Bakers dog biscuits that I use as floating bait and they can't wait for me to leave before scavenging the bank for stray biscuits.

Other wildlife often seen include Squirrels and Green woodpecker and during September there is always the chance of a stop over to feed for migrating Osprey so watch this space,  Not forgetting the fishing !  The portrait of yours truly with a 1lb Roach was taken by Peter Tonkin,  The trio of Golden Rudd and Roach below weighed in at 1lb to 1.5lb and the Roach below that was my best fish last week at 2.25lb

Bring on the Osprey!!

Cormorant Portraits

Anyone that has observed a Cormorant Fishing will know just what a skillful and efficient predator they are,  Last year early AM one morning I watched one bird dispatch six eels from Longrock pond in as many minutes, Not everybody's ideal breakfast perhaps but two resident Heron just stood and stared  in envy as the Cormorant filled its belly full of wrigglers before departing,   While on a fishing trip yesterday a passing Cormorant showed some interest and circled the pond and landed in the thin foliage at the top of a willow tree,  Those large webbed feet are not made for tree landings and the bird went through a wing flapping balancing act until it found a secure branch to steady itself.  It was wet presumably from fishing in some other local pond and was now just looking for somewhere to digest its breakfast and dry out its sophisticated looking plumage in the morning sunshine,  I took several images as the bird rotated periodically to expose different areas of its plumage towards the drying sunshine and I guess the last classic Cormorant wing spread shot is the one that shows off the bird's intricate wing formation at its best