Exciting couple of days on patch!

...but unfortunately not for me as I didn't have time for the Long-Eared Owl or the Marsh Harrier due to work. Ahh it's demoralising to be almost completely without the luxury of free time (however at the current time it's also sensible). Here's a couple more pics from the weekend which I didn't have time to post previously. They're rather unspectacular as it was really dull late afternoon/early evening on Sunday, and the drizzly conditions that the pics were taken in certainly weren't ideal.

It's slightly annoying that Kingfishers are so 'easy to get' from Tower Hide. I've spent literally hundreds (possibly thousands??) of hours trying to achieve decent shots of them on the River Coly over the last 10 years, where they are incredibly hard to get within 30 or so metres of. The work did pay off last year and the resulting pics were suitably satisfying, especially with all perches being completely natural rather than man-made which is almost unavoidable with the birds on the Axe (I hasten to add that I didn't have bags of time in 2011 either, it was a case of working 7:00-16:00 or 8:00-17:00, rushing dinner, then spending the evenings by the Coly until it was too dark to see the bird(s)). It's just odd how I like Kingfisher's on the Coly but don't hold much excitement for seeing them on the Axe. Totally natural habitat pics from the Coly are always going to be that bit more special (and actually worked for). Oh and adult birds only of course, the juv's are so drab by comparison (like my shoddy pics above!).
Revisiting the Coly birds from last year... These are cropped to show an insignificant proportion of the picture as I've had copy/theft problems with them in the past.

I think I'm always going to have a soft spot for these. If you haven't heard of Malcolm Brown (Malckingfisher) or seen any of his pics, then type him into Google. Some of his shots are simply mind-blowing and make mine look distinctly amateur (which probably isn't an inappropriate classification given the relatively cheap camera gear which I can sensibly afford).