Red-Flanked Bluetail GALLERY

The photos say it all:

The background is almost too neutral here. I edited out a couple of the twigs but this is the same pic that I posted yesterday

RED-FLANKED BLUETAIL !!!

I booked the day off work today and finally made the trip to Marshfield, Gloucestershire to see the Red-Flanked Bluetail. The weather was gloomy with the occasional heavy shower but I'm one of those abnormal photographers who prefers to shoot in shady conditions; colours look more aesthetically pleasing IMO, and without ugly reflections from certain colours or textures. Thankfully my camera is quite capable of taking a nice photo in dull conditions when cranking up the ISO setting.

The bird. After my HIDEOUS dip with the Brunnich's Guillemot earlier in the year when I went to see it on the first day of it's absence, I was determined for this outing to be a successful one. It was. I didn't get any 'brilliant' photos but some of them are satisfactory. I have somewhere in the region of 1100 shots to sort through so I'll just post this one initially, to give you a taster...

Thank you and VERY well done to the finder. I'm glad I was able to see and appreciate this cracking little bird like so many others have.

Favourite Photo Entry #1 & #2

Whilst there's a lull in the interesting species of wildlife on patch I thought I'd try and keep my blog interesting by posting some of my favourite pics from last year, not all of which have appeared on here. Here's the Little Egret pic which I posted recently, along with a B & W version of a Wood Sandpiper image:

Wood Sandpiper

Little Egret

Also may I point you in the direction of the 'Exhibition Pics' page on the bar above? ^ ^
I've finally uploaded a couple of pics to this page; it'll be an area featuring only my favourite works (there will not be many pics making this page)!

Kumlien's Gull River Axe !!

I was glad to receive a message from Steve Waite this morning saying that the Kumlien's was back in front of the tram sheds. I managed to escape work for a couple of hours (will pay for it this evening) and saw the gull, but the views were, ermmm... not good. It was sitting quite settled on the opposite side of the river with no way of getting close, aside from that it was pissing it down and really blowy; hand-holding the camera in my car was significantly more stable than using a top-of-the-range tripod outside of the car. Hopefully it'll hang on for a good few days (being very optimistic here...) so I might get a better opportunity for photos. Here's what I did manage, see Karen's blog for some shots whilst the bird was closer and performing in MUCH more favourable weather conditions:

Kumlien's Gull?

Well it seems as though I am yet again the only patch birder that was unable to see a mega local rarity (patch first in this case) due to work commitments. I raced over to the Axe Estuary as soon as I finished work. There were 2 gulls left within view on the estuary, both Herring. I later read that the Kumlien's gull left at 16:47, just 20 minutes before my arrival. It's times like this when my 90-110 hour per week work schedule is really bloody demoralising.
Here's a couple of Redshank pics from a few weeks ago to make this blog post worthwhile, rather than making do with just a grumble! I just hope that the Kumlien's stays close for a while in case I get a few precious minutes of daylight to spare...

Seaton Storm Impact: The Aftermath

I wasn't able to go down and see the floods during their worst, but I did pop down to Seaton late last night to see some of what the storm left behind: