Pictorial update

Work is getting the better of me again at the moment, to an extent of taking holiday from one job to work on another!
I haven't had a great deal of daylight time available to go out with the camera so have instead produced an arty edit of one of my recent Barn Owl pics which received a lot of positive comments. I don't generally do composite image edits but I gave it a 10 minute go with this one:

Kestrel Family & Barn Owl pics

There's some rather big news which may or may not be reaching this blog page soon... it'll be relevant to nearly all my readers.

In the meantime here's what the post title is regarding. One of the adult Barn Owls put on a very brief show this evening and this is what I managed to get from the viewing platform:

The young Kestrels have finally begun their soft fledging, with at least three of the five having hopped to the nearest tree and then back to the nest box. Here's some images of them; not particularly close up as the adult male was to-ing and fro-ing with food and I didn't want to disturb proceedings.

Dragons and Damsels... oh and a Barn Owl

Lower Bruckland Ponds is a fantastic location to see a hugely diverse range of dragonflies and damselflies; I can highly recommend a visit to anyone who likes these beautiful critters. There's many pics to sort through yet so watch this space...

Four-Spotted Chaser

I have rather a lot of dragonfly and damselfly images to post on here when I get around to sorting through them. In the meantime here's a B & W edit of a Four-Spotted Chaser pic for you to (hopefully!) enjoy:

I cannot emphasise how difficult in-flight shots of dragonflies are...

Better Barn Owl pic... and a Fox

I'm determined to get a decent shot of the Barn Owl eventually. Still waiting for it to show in nice light and close enough. This is the best one so far (in terms of IQ):

Night shot of a Fox prowling the fields above Black Hole Marsh

Barn Owl and Signet pics

I had a very enjoyable evening at Black Hole Marsh with some good company in the form of John Crabb. This was the first (reported) evening that both adult Barn Owls were out hunting at the same time; myself and John were watching one adult hunting for an hour or so but just after 21:00 both flew out! The Signet photo was also taken today (B & W edit). I apologise for the images being noisy; the low light makes this an inevitable problem:

Patch gold! Self-found lifer at Black Hole Marsh

Okay so perhaps 'gold' is a slight aggrandisement, but an evening visit to Black Hole Marsh (in the rain) proved to be a very good move! I went with the intention of recording some video footage of the Tawny Owl(s) but two small ducks caught my attention. They were showing distantly from Island Hide. I sent out a message stating that I had a probable Garganey pair; I said probable because they were distant and I'd never actually seen a Garganey before. They eventually came within 30 yards or so thereby becoming easy to identify; the initial difficulty for me to make the ID was that the eye stripe on the male was far from obvious, as Garganey go. The male was a generally scruffy bird! The pair flew off of Black Hole Marsh and dropped down over the Estuary but 10 minutes later they were back in front of Island Hide! Pics aren't great as the birds were never really close enough, and the conditions were dark and wet:

The Garganey were still present when I left at 21:10 ish.

I also took a few shots of this beauty:

5 Bee-Eater at Axe Cliff & Whiskered Tern pics

Bee-Eater is one of those birds that I've always wanted to see but never had up until today. I tend to like birds with an exotic type aesthetic and this species certainly has that. This is one of those rare occasions where I'll post some TERRIBLE pics; I'm just glad to have seen a Bee-Eater (and the other four)! Head over to Karen's blog for some decent pics; she was simply in the right place at the right time. Well done Karen! The birds were a good couple hundred yards away for my pics; I got perhaps 10 seconds of viewing before they flew off, not to be seen locally again.

3 of the 5 European Bee-Eater

Now for some more pics of the Whiskered Tern where it was me who was fortunate to be in the right place in the right time. It put on a brief but fantastic show:

I have more photos of the Ross's Gull to post when I've sorted through them...