Grey Heron with prey portraiture (MEGA close pics)

I spent as much of the day out with the camera as I could today. I got some blog-able Pied Wagtail shots which I'll post soon, and also these of a stunning Grey Heron. It's well worth clicking on all of them for a larger view. NOTE: if you have McAfee anti-virus or SiteAdvisor then it may complain with a 'Whoa' warning when clicking on some (not all) of the pics. This is probably because of large file size but there's obviously nothing to worry with clicking on the pics in terms of virus/malware.

Just a bit of fun with this one. Sharp enough photo?

Red Kite over Colyton

I had a brief time slot free after work yesterday (Saturday) so I headed out to see how the Grey Wagtails were getting along. I was surprised to see this passing Red Kite; it was VERY distant (mega crop on the photo) but it did soar around for about 5 minutes.

Grey Wagtail family

I took some more pics of one of the Grey Wagtail families along the River Coly this evening. I'm quite pleased with how they came out considering it was 21:30 and the shutter speeds were around the 1/30 sec mark for the majority of them :-)

Pictorial update

Okay so maybe the River Coly update part 2 isn't going to happen. I'll weave the interesting parts into future posts but for now here's some pics:

Poor thing!

*EDIT* Grey Heron

I will eventually get around to writing part two to accompany the post previous to this one. In the meantime here's a few pics of 2 Grey Herons, one of which was on Black Hole Marsh and the other by the Coly. It's well worth clicking on all of these to get a larger view.
*EDIT. I've had a brief play around with the top pic on Photoshop and Lightroom*

Please excuse the watermark; I don't want this one (or any of them) nicked.

River Coly Update Part 1

I haven't got a lot of time and will be at work in too few hours so this is going to be a two part update. Here's a few pics from the last 2 evenings. I'll post a decent amount of writing when time permits; hopefully tomorrow!

Back on patch!

I'll start by revealing what the 'lights' on the pics from the Italy Day 13 post. Yeah yeah, slightly late I know. The mystery species is Firefly!
I dragged myself out with the camera after work today; it's been frustrating not to be able to until now (ill, antibiotics etc etc). It was nice to see lots of young birds around including Chaffinch, Grey Wagtail and Song Thrush but the lack of Dipper activity was disappointing. The male Kingfisher is feeding the nest on his own (or so it appears) so it seems likely that the female is sitting on egg/young. I haven't heard of any young Kingfishers having reached the Axe so unfortunately the first brood has almost definitely failed. Hopefully this brood will be successful. All I managed pics of were Mallard and Pied Wagtail:

Normal service to resume shortly

I can only apologise for the abrupt halt regarding the holiday posts. I fell rather ill. 8 days later and I'm now just about able to swallow again. Some wildlife related posts will appear shortly!

Italy day 13

A rather alternative post... kudos to whoever works out what the 2 pics with 'specks of light' are of. I'll post a pic with the answer in tomorrow's blog update. Comments with your thoughts are welcome!

Italy day 12

I went on a tour around Lake Garda today and the following pics are going to make it very clear just how desperate for wildlife pics I was (except the one of me eating my first of 5 ice creams).

Italy day 11

2nd post of the day:
After having a good birding day up Monte Baldo on Saturday, I decided to pay it a second visit. I saw more of the same but with the addition of 2 Honey Buzzard and a distant but lovely male Red Backed Shrike. I managed a slightly better Wheatear pic too.

Italy day 10

I had an excruciating headache yesterday so didn't update the blog! I'll make up for it today with 2 posts... Here's some pics from my trip to Venice yesterday.