Dipper Display

A handsome male Dipper on the River Kennall goes straight into a courtship display when a female Dipper arrives in his patch of the river.

With much fancy dancing and dipping he does his best to woe the female into mating.

The female watches the males display with some disdain and then moved off up river to check out another male that she had seen in the area recently.

It looks like all this dipping and dancing is OK but the female is looking for a good nest builder who will also help with all the domestic chores over the coming month when she is raising a family!

Blackbird V Woodpecker

While waiting to capture Great Spotted Woodpecker landing and take-off at Stithians southern cut-off today I witnessed a territorial dispute between a male Woodpecker and a male Blackbird.

I would not have expected a blackbird to be of any threat to a woodpecker so I was a bit surprised when the sequence of events posted below were recorded.

The blackbird was incensed when the woodpecker threatened it and stood its ground for a few seconds but then took off and I thought that would be the end of it.

But this clever blackbird circled around behind the woodpecker and relaunched its attack in flight while out of reach from the woodpeckers powerful dagger like beak,   It then returned to its original location ready to stand its ground again

The Woodpecker seemed as surprised as I was at the feisty blackbirds stand but decided to exit the location in a sideways take-off and perhaps come back another time.

There is perhaps surprisingly not much in it when you weigh up the size and weight difference between these two birds but this particular wise old blackbird is probably used to fighting for its territory with all the other local male blackbirds on a daily basis.  

                                               Blackbird 1   V   Woodpecker 0

Woodpecker Landing and Take-off

                                                                 Greater Spotted Woodpecker Landing

Greater Spotted Woodpecker Take-off

The Greater Spotted Woodpecker is a fast, efficient and quick witted predator,  If you watch one for a while you will start to realise how difficult it is to first judge the moment of their take-off and secondly to track them to their choice of landing places.

Wildlife photographers love to take on the challenge of capturing these moments in time and the key to success is in studying your subject to enable you to detect the action points when they re-occur and then to build up a  ' Tricks of the trade '    list of resolutions that helps you overcome the problems that each subject throws up that might stop you capturing the moment

Happy Chappies !

Peter Tonkin and I were a couple of happy chappies working with the Grey Wagtails and Dipper on the River Kennall today.

Kennall Vale Dipper Behaviour

The male Dipper was displaying well to the female on their waterfall location in the river at Kennall Vale today.

But the female didn't seem to be over impressed by his display so after scratching his head the male flew off to put another plan into motion.

H e went to some partially submerged moss covered boulder and came back with a face full of moss which he displayed to the female for nesting material.

She seemed to be very pleased with his efforts and they both flew up into her nest site.

The Male Dipper decided that this was a good move and was last seen leaving their waterfall and chasing off down the river looking for more Moss !!

Little Grebe predating on a male Palmate Newt

A Little Grebe surfaces from a dive having caught a lively male Palmate Newt.

Holding it behind the head it thrashes the newt against the surface water breaking its neck.

Its game over for the newt as the grebe dispatches it down the hatch and is immediately off looking for another one.

On the same visit to Stithians Southern cut-off I watched the water movement as it ran off of the back of a Canada Goose as it completed   'A Wash & Brush-up '

I finished off  this pleasant visit with an up close and personal portrait of a colourful male Bullfinch

Woodpecker Portraits

Peter Tonkin and I had plans for today but the Cornish wintery weather decided otherwise and as a plan 'B' we ended up taking shelter in Stithians southern cut-off hide to try our luck with the Great Spotted Woodpecker,

It proved to be a lot better than it was with the weather as the male woodpecker gave us a good show with regular sightings around the feeding station which compensated for the females absence.

We both came home with a nice selection of portraits and behaviour shots taken throughout our enjoyable four hour visit and on our way home we hatch another plan 'B' for tomorrow should the weather intervene with plan 'A' again.