Focus on Drift Reservoir

Above is the view from a cover point that I sometimes use at Drift Reservoir and the images below were all taken during a three hour shoot there earlier today.


Nice to see a squirrel freely foraging about on the reservoirs open banks.

It is quite common to see fox out hunting on the shoreline and this one came very close until I fired my shutter after which it took off in a flash.

Many Grey Heron grace the banks of Drift Reservoir and reflections shots and take-off 's are there for the taking.

The resident Moorhen are always busy and they provide good reflection images from the many partially submerged tree stumps.

With plenty of small fish and dozens of tree stumps to work from Kingfishers are a common sight around Drift Reservoir.

Last but not least comes this fairly rare sighting of a nice Black Rabbit !

Cormorant Roost

There are currently twenty + Cormorants that roost in a single tree on the west side of the northeast arm of Drift Reservoir,  These birds are amazingly agile fish feeders and they must take one hell of a toll from the Trout and Golden Rudd population of this reservoir every year.

Being such successful hunters means that they have plenty of leisure time to socialise and to adopt their classic wing drying poses that are favoured by most photographers.

Another fish goes down the hatch above and the poser below looks as though he just hasn't got room to fit in any more today

Osprey with Fish

                                                          ' The one that got away '

Over the last month I have been working on the challenge to capture a few Osprey with fish images and the interesting fishing action image above is as close as I had got.

Well this morning after a two hour wait I finally got lucky when the Juvenile Osprey in the shots below hooked its talons into a nice Golden Rudd

My luck improved even more when it turned into the wind and flew in the direction of my cover and landed in nearby trees affording me some close overhead flight portraits

The skies were overcast and light levels respectively low but I was pleased to finally capture my        ' Osprey with fish ' shots for this migratory season.

Osprey look-alike ?

When that distant expected Osprey flying towards you turns out to be the local Buzzard it can be a little disappointing but on another day I would be pleased to photograph it so I carried on with the shoot as it passed directly over heading into the sun.

During post production I was pleased with the portraits of this fine looking Buzzard a few of which are posted below.

The next bird passing will hopefully be an Osprey !!

Little Egret Fishing

Two Little Egret fly into the North East arm of Drift Reservoir for a spot of fishing on its shallow margins. The birds separated and I tracked the closer of the pair as it entered the margins in front of my cover.

It kept me busy for just over an hour as it predated on small fish and frogs and then rested for ten minutes before flying off in the direction that it had come from.

Little Egrets are very skillful hunters and always a joy to watch and photograph !

Fox behaviour : Life's a Beach !!

With plenty of clear skies and bright sunshine over the last few days it seemed like Cornwall was indulging in a bit of an Indian Summer with visitors and locals heading for beaches that were a bit quieter than in the summer holiday season.

Well they were not alone.  Take a look at these images below of a fine pair of young foxes enjoying life on the beach after a busy nights hunting.

The first fox called Snoozy arrived and dug a hole in the sand to find a cool level to lie in and then had a good scratch before commencing its sunbathing siesta,

When the second fox called Twitchy arrived at the same time as an inquisitive Kingfisher it was not quite so fussy and casually led out in a rough patch of leaf litter and driftwood.

Twitchy was no Beach boy,  He was a bit of a live wire and he soon got a bit twitchy with the lack of action

Twitchy did all he could to disturb Snoozy and goad him into some sand digging interaction but Snoozy was having none of it.

Twitchy had now had enough of all this lying around snoozing

and eventually gave up and went off to explore the rest of the beach on his own !

                                                             
                                                                    Life's a beach !!

Fox Portraits

Foxes like people just love to be out and about on warm sunny days,   Above and below are just a few of the dozens of individual portrait images that I took while watching three immaculate young foxes enjoying the sunshine early yesterday morning.

More Fox behaviour images to follow shortly !