Long-tailed Tit

Long-tailed Tits must be among the most popular of small birds, They are group raiders that do not seem to have time to hang around complying with pecking orders around feeders or trees and bushes, they just dive straight in and grab what they want and move on before other birds turn against them, They do the rounds in family groups of up to a dozen or so covering quite large territories only to re-appear at any given location several times each day and at Stithians feeding station they add an interesting spectacle to a location that is already busy with birds but do they wait their turn, No chance, they just pile in for some welcome hand outs and are off on their way again,

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Six of today's Great Spotted Woodpecker images

There is nothing that I love more than being able to spend many hours working with the same bird on any given day to study its behaviour and today proved to be one of them,  For some reason the female Great spotted Woodpecker at Stithians reservoir southern cut-off hide which normally makes a beeline for the nut or fatball feeders had changed tack today and spent several hours drilling and searching for bugs and grubs on the lichen and moss covered tree trunks and branches along the waterline, It was fascinating to watch this bird searching every nook and cranny along branches often hanging upside down by those large and powerful claws to cover the total area of any chosen tree limb and stopping from time to time to drill holes in the tree bark presumably to access hidden grubs who's presence it seemed to sense,  The lichen and moss coating that is a trademark of the Cornish landscape adds vibrant colour, interest and impact to these images and helped to create a very pleasant experience working with and indeed just watching this amazing bird's behaviour today.

Spoonbill at Ryan's field

Wildlife took a bit of a back seat today as I spent some time at Specsavers checking out sight issues effecting my vision with the onslaught of Cataract in both eyes, Predictable the NHS do not consider them bad enough to replace the lenses at this stag, so it seems  Things have to get worse before they will get better!!  I'm not to impressed with this result and have ordered my white stick and what happened to that fine old proverb: 'Prevention is better than cure'  but I did come away with a new pair of vari-focal glasses to try to help with my photography in the mean time,  So, off of my Soap Box and onwards and upwards.

I dropped into Ryan's field hide on my way home at the same time as a semi resident Spoonbill so I sat and watched its interesting behaviour in somewhat blustery and stormy conditions which pulled the light levels all over the place,  The gusting winds were unbalancing this large bird but it set off round the shallow lagoon demonstrating its side ways but very effective fishing technique and it was soon throwing back a few shrimps and worms

Following the fishing the sun came out briefly as the Spoonbill went into preening mode which it carries out very skilfully considering what looks like a very clumsy bill

The Spoonbill looked about as impressed with the blustery weather today as I was with the NHS so it decided to get its head settled down over its back to ride out the storm and I went home to write about it while I could still see what I was doing !!

Kingfisher with fish

Stithians reservoir male Kingfisher was showing well this morning and treated me to a fishing exercise from the first post out from the southern cut-off Hide, It fished from and returned to this post but didn't seem happy to stun it prey,  a Three Spin Stickleback against it,  so he immediately flew out to trees on the first island to consume its catch before flying over to the far bank of the cut-off no doubt  to repeat the exercise all over again.  It is always good to watch the flashing colours of a kingfisher in action and I always take it as a sign that all is well,  That is providing that you don't happen to be a fish !!

 The Snipe were also showing well during a brief spell of sunshine with six close together under one of the small island trees at a distance of around two hundred metres,  The Pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers were quite skitty and camera shy but still made several visits to the feeders, and a juvenile Moorhen from a local family group of four seemed happy to carry on foraging at the waters edge in a sharp downpour of rain,

Snipe Might

The might of the Snipe lies in its success at hiding itself around the margins of all our local waterways,  It remains unseen by most predators and passers bye and carefully selects the times when it moves to feed,  So it might seem odd in a way that when we wildlife photographers work with them we are constantly frustrated because they blend so well into their surroundings that an image has to be carefully studied to see them which is not very pleasing to the eye,  So we tend to look for rare close moments when we can separate them from foliage and other distractions but at such times the Snipe tend to be very skittish and difficult to get close to,  The images posted on this blog tend to fit into this mind set with the first and last images having been taken at around 10 to 12 metres using a lens with a focal length of 850mm on my Nikon D5 full frame camera set to DX crop mode to produce full frame images of the Snipe, They were taken early AM today with the benefit of cover provided by the Cut-off hide at Stithians reservoir.

Woodpecker flight merge

The female great Spotted Woodpecker was showing well at Stithians Southern cut-off today and several visits to the feeders produced this merge of three images taken in full sunshine which is a bit of a rarity during these dark December days

Small birds produced plenty of flight shots such as the striking male chaffinch posted below

The illusive male Mandarin duck also put in another show but still only from quite a distance from the hide

Longships lighthouse

Peter Tonkin and I arrived at Lands End as the sun came up this morning,  We were there looking for pictures of the Longships Lighthouse as a storm passed through at high tide,  The Longships are around a mile and a half offshore from Lands End the most westerly point in England  { As shown in the image below } They take quite a bashing from incoming Atlantic storms and high seas and can create dramatic storm images such as the one posted above,

The weather forecast had suggested that we might get a clear patch in the storm clouds between Eight and Ten Am but breaks in the cloud for the sun to shine through were few and far between so even though we had the wind and waves  to create many pictures like the second one below they lack the colour, contrast and impact that the morning sunshine can bring to the Longships.

At around 9.30am a break in the cloud gave us ten minutes of unbroken sunshine before the wind gusted strongly bringing with it horizontal rain and rainbows but ten minutes of sunshine had been long enough for us to capture images like the Lead in image and the one below,

Garden visitors today

Apart from my early visit to Marazion marsh this morning the wet weather put the damper on visiting any other locations through the day, I settled down to producing this years crop of Xmas cards in my study but my wife kept coming in to inform me that she had spotted  a 'This or That' bird somewhere in the garden and perhaps I should snap it,  So I did and the images below represent some of the sixteen species that I snapped away at as the day progressed,  The male and female Bullfinch are the first ones sighted in our garden in seven years of living here but the female Blackcap has to be my favourite and takes the first and last slot in the portfolio below and yes I have just finished the Xmas cards somewhat later than intended.