Gone Fishing
The easing of lock-down came just as all our Kingfishers were feeding their first broods of young.The exceptional weather that we had during lock-down ensured that very few, if any, lost their first broods to flooding which is more than can be said for the second broods. The pair from this weeks photos lost their […]
Perfection
Well after months of waiting here it is – a hunting male Long Eared Owl has just landed on a post that I put in especially for it and he has even raised his ear-tufts for the perfect picture. Normally the ear-tufts lie flat on his head and are not readily visible. In fact this […]
The Food Pass
Whenever you are photographing breeding birds of prey the ultimate photo that you are after is the food-pass. It is the split second when the prey is being passed from the adult to its young. You have to be quick and yet, surprisingly, it is seldom the best photo of the series. What happens is […]
Owls In The Mist
This weeks photo is undoubtedly the worst photo I have ever taken. The significance is that I have spent a lifetime hoping to find young Long Eared Owls when they have just left the nest. It all came good last week when I found four young Owls perched together just as I had hoped for. […]
Hungry Young Kestrels
Finding a good nest site of a pair of Kestrels is never easy with this weeks site being one of the most photogenic I have ever seen. It is a hole in the gable end of an old stone barn and I should have filmed it last year when they had four young. Unfortunately last […]
Courting Kingfishers
Very rarely are you ever in a hide when the male Kingfisher alights and presents a fish to his female. If she accepts the fish then this is usually followed by copulation. I have only filmed this a handful of times in the last fifty years so last weeks action was most welcome even if […]
Sods Law
Over the last month I have spent many hours under a camouflage cloth hoping a hunting male Long Eared Owl would land on a post that I had placed on the forest edge. Some nights I never saw him at all but on other nights, just to rub it in, he would hunt all around […]
Nuthatch Success
After last weeks Wader disaster it is good to highlight one species that is going from strength to strength. The Nuthatches of this weeks blog were filmed in my local woodland and now their young are calling from all over the wood. Another pair are taking food from our garden and feeding young in a […]
Wader Disaster…
While we were all confined to our gardens enjoying almost unbroken sunshine our moorlands were drying out and providing little food for the young waders emerging from their eggs. Curlew numbers are already down 50% in the last ten years so this years weather will have added to their decline. Dunlin are the Pennines latest […]
Fledged Young
Each year at this time we would normally be on Islay filming Hen Harriers.It is no consolation that we are at home in exceptional weather! However, the only bonus is that we are now able to watch and film the local garden birds as they fledge their young, something that we normally miss. So this […]