SPECTACULAR birding on the Axe. Best day of the year??

With yesterday's Great White Egret seemingly spending the evening in the area, I went to Black Hole Marsh for 06:30 this morning. It was a bloody good job I did too! I had good views of the G W Egret from Tower Hide for about 10 mins (took me a while to locate it) before it flew high and South at 07:20. Fantastic bird, and I had it all to myself as nobody else fancied the morning stint (excuse the pun) at the marsh.

After a successful hour birding I went to work in a good mood. As soon as I'd finished I headed back out with the camera; target species was Osprey. I still haven't seen the Osprey fishing yet but did locate it on a post eating a fish. Using the car as a hide, I drove down a lane and set up quite distantly, perhaps 200-300 yards away. After a few minutes watching, the Osprey looked shifty so I prepared for some action shots (crank the ISO and the shutter speed settings up on the camera) and sure enough it took off. It then flew straight towards me until it was within 100 yards or so; still pretty distant but the pics came out okay considering the conditions. One of my favourite birds to photograph... There are more pics to come from today; I also had a Hobby perform a couple of fly-bys in the evening, as well as a posing Kingfisher. Those can be saved for another post; for now please enjoy these: