Marazion Marsh today: Part two

My visit to Marazion marsh started before sunrise this morning looking for sightings of Roe Deer,  Numbers have been on the decline over the last year and on this occasion only one was sighted  but I was at least pleased to see that this doe looked to be showing early signs of pregnancy to hopefully  help boost the numbers again this year.

The sunrise over Marazion was serene and peaceful and coincided with high tide

The early rays of sunshine are a gift to any photographer that works this marsh with the reed beds and wildlife and camera settings all responding well to such mornings and after being treated to an early bittern in flight posted in the previous blog I decided to concentrate on some of the other bigger birds that this Marsh supports,

Bittern at Marazion marsh

It was a clear but cold morning at sunrise but there are few places that I would rather be as the early rays of sunlight hit the marsh reedbeds,,  I was here again today hoping for a glimpse of this years very illusive Bittern of which my sightings count was currently zero.

I was at the viewing recess halfway along the Marazion/Longroch causeway talking to Dave Walsh about Dipper at Kennell Vale  and I believe our conversation disturbed nothing less than a Bittern in the closest section of reed beds,  It was off in a flash flying straight away from us and on up through the central north facing channel. perhaps lucky for me at the end it turned east facing into the sunlight making its way towards Marazion over the top of the reed beds.

We were both delighted with the sighting and extended flight that it made while I managed around twenty focused but distant shots before in dropped back into the reed bed and out of sight once more,

Perhaps not the best sighting ever but:  There is no such thing as a bad one !!

Peregrine Today

An early medical appointment determined that this mornings south coast walk was a little later than usual and sods law dictated that as I arrived at a Peregrine location both birds departed to hunt,

The female Peregrine returned empty-handed within fifteen minutes flying into a high shadowed cliff ledge and settled down to a bout of relaxed preening,

The male by contrast was missing in action for nearly two hours before eventually returning with a live starling in its talons, He called offering his prey to the female that was still preening on a ledge  but she showed no interest in his offers,

The starling had no chance of escape and it breathed its last as a swift bit through the back of its neck  finished its days and the male Peregrine set about plucking and consuming the prey himself, Perhaps not very pleasant but its a daily requirement for many birds of prey to survive.

In the mean time the female moved back out into sunny area that was sheltered from a cold north wind and looked relaxed as she just watched the day unfold.

The cold wind was beginning to get to me by now so with a parting shot of the female starting to regurgitate prey waste which confirmed that she had already eaten earlier,  I packed my kit and headed for home and a warm log fire to download today's images and edit this blog,

Mating Toads

I watched a fine Buzzard in the previous blog predating on frogs or toads this morning.  When I arrived home I decided to check out our large garden pond which already contained masses of frog spawn,  I could see a few toads floating on the surface with their heads and huge amber eyes reflecting on the water surface but I had expected to see more.

Then ripples spreading out from behind a recess formed by large granite rocks gave the game away with a dozen or more male toads writhing over each other in a very confined space,  I have to assume that there was a female toad caught up in there somewhere and would expect to start seeing the tell-tale string egg lines showing very shortly

Their mating seems to be a very public and social affair,  But I guess its each to their own !!

Buzzard behaviour

The close Buzzard portrait above was taken during a two hour encounter with what looked like a fairly young bird that had picked up on the amount of frogs and toads that were crawling and swimming around at Marazion marsh looking for mates this morning,

The bird stayed low to the ground using various fence posts and RSPB marker posts as vantage points which allowed me plenty of opportunities for close working low level portraits

I watched the bird take and dispatch several frogs as it made short ground level attacks from the posts

This was my closest shot taken at my minimum eight metre to infinity focal range setting while the bird was preoccupied hunting in the reeds

This behaviour went on for nearly two hours by which time the buzzard was beginning to look quite bloated

Just one more frog to dispatch and the buzzard had eaten its fill and it departed to the high pine tree woods at the back of the marsh leaving me with the best buzzard behaviour sequences that I had taken  in a while.

The Rock Hopper & the Glider

THE ROCK HOPPER 

This Grey Heron surprised me when it landed on the unlikely edge of a razor sharp rock on the clifftop about a hundred metres in front of me as I walked the coast path,

It watched me as I slowly moved forward until I was to close for its comfort zone when it turned and made a very graceful hop onto the next sharp rock along the cliff,

Very nicely done for such a lanky bird but only a metre gained in distance between us,  As I walked on towards the heron, it finally got the message and dropped off of the second rock to fly down the cliff face to the waterline below leaving me with an interesting set of images.

THE GLIDER

Further on along the coastline this fine buzzard passed over me twice in the space of a few minutes,  It maintained a height or around  thirty metres above the clifftop footpath and it never made a single wing beat during either pass or onwards as it continued until out of sight along the coastline,  What a way to travel !!

Peregrine with prey

When I arrived on the south coast this morning I could see that the Peregrine had already eaten and one bird was reaching open mouthed to regurgitate indigestible waste,  The second bird came in with more prey offerings but the first was obviously still not capable of eating more so that too went off to be stashed for later.  It was good to see that the pair had bonded well and obviously the male was well capable of supplying the female through the oncoming nesting season.

Half an hour later the male Peregrine returned to the cliffs with another gory looking half eaten larger carcass but that was refused as well so it too was taken off to the same stash site as the first offering,

Rising up from the stash this busy bird circled around a few time perhaps considering going hunting again but it eventually decided to wait and glided gracefully back into a favoured cliff ledge to relax in the sunshine for a while.

I moved on along the coast looking for early Adders that might be tempted out to bask in the warm sunshine but today was not to be the day for my first 2018 sighting.