Corporate Vandalism
This week’s photo shows what is now left of a vibrant larch plantation at Clough Bottom near Burnley. I have been monitoring the breeding birds in this plantation for more than thirty five years and on the fourteenth of May each year there would have been more than fifteen species of birds nesting in the […]
American Migrants Arrive
Another visit to Morecambe Bay on the fourteenth produced this week’s distant view of not only one but two Pectoral Sandpipers as they fed happily next to a Snipe. The wader passage this Autumn has been exceptional and in addition to the Sandpipers there were still seven Greenshank, three Spotted Redshanks, four Curlew Sandpipers and […]
Waders On The Move
More good weather during the week . I spent a glorious four hours on Morecambe Bay filming up to ten species of wader. The undoubted highlight was filming twenty four Curlew Sandpipers which were birds I had never even seen before. Most were juvenile birds that had come from Siberia and usually pass through the […]
Adders Still Active
With warm sunny weather during the week I visited my Pennine Adder site and was surprised to find seven Adders in the area. Better still one was actively hunting with its body raised off the ground showing the orange rings which I have never seen before. I finally obtained the shot I was after with […]
Glorious Twelfth
There is little doubt that the high moorlands of the Yorkshire Dales are at their very best when covered in purple heather during August. On the 23rd I drove through thick mist in the valleys to reach the high tops before 7am. It was a magnificent morning with no wind, no traffic and Red […]
Late Summer Birds
During the last few weeks I have been filming a collection of late Summer breeding birds. These include Willow Warbler and Meadow Pipit with food, a Spotted Flycatcher with a large item of prey along with a fast flying Swift all can be seen in this week’s gallery together with a photo of a mass […]
Spotted Red
There is little doubt that of all the Scandinavian waders which come to Britain in late Summer none is better than the Spotted Redshank especially in its resplendent Summer plumage. Better still when I photographed one at Morecombe Bay this week there was no wind and I had a perfect reflection. After forty four years […]
Butterflies Galore
The big bonus from the July sunshine and warmth has been the emergence of vast numbers of butterflies. In a two hundred yard stretch of thistles by the local canal I counted sixty eight Small Tortoiseshell butterflies and this after receiving the Butterfly Conservation Newsletter which stated that they were in a 77% decline this […]
Reflections Of Summer
With more than nine hours of sunshine per day this July has been the sunniest I can remember and with the late breeding season I have never been as busy. I have spent three hours each morning this week filming a male Kingfisher as he fed young that were about to fledge. As we have […]
Little Ringed Plover’s Success
In recent years I have had a licence from Natural England to photograph Little Ringed Plover at the nest on one of the moorland reservoirs. This Spring the birds returned to breed but had a major problem in that the reservoir was completely full of water with nowhere for them to lay their eggs. They […]