LOTS from BHM

I spent pretty much all of the daytime yesterday at Black Hole Marsh. I'll apologise in advance for the onslaught of pics which will soon be in evidence...
Non-bird pics first:

Migrant Hawker

Water Vole

Now to the birds:
Wood Sandpipers:

+ Dunlin

Little Egret:

Fishing

Success!

Greenshank:

Pretty pleased with this one.

And then this happened..... hmm nice!

Here it comes...

Flying out...

And plop into the water!

Knot:

Unfortunately this bird had an injured left leg. This did make it easier to get a wings-up shot though as the bird had to flap to keep it's balance when it was walking.

Sparrowhawk:
Rubbish shots but these birds are good at eluding me and my cameras so I'll post them anyway.

Kestrel:

Oystercatchers:

Pied Wagtail (juvenile):

I also spotted two (I'm assuming juvenile) Peregrines Falcons tumbling around in the sky, quite high up. They flew over BHM from Axe Cliffs direction.
Also a big thanks to Alick Simmons who let me stick my camera on the end of his 500mm lens + 1.4x extender combo. The fourth pic down in the Wood Sandpiper section was taken with his lens (wasn't sunny at the time). I already wanted that lens, definitely want one now. My 300mm is too short for wildlife really, although the size is convenient (only big instead of huge). Better get yet another job to fund it then (as well as not instead of)... or win the lottery ;-).

Cracking views from BHM (and more)

I briefly went to BHM yesterday evening after work. I took a few (dozen) shots of a Kestrel hunting in the area behind the Field Studies Base. Also there was a Green Sandpiper and a Black-Tailed Godwit on the scrape. Here's some of yesterdays pics:

Shame about the damned lines!!

Dinner!

Today:
After work I motorbiked off to visit Black Hole Marsh to see what was about. Nothing unusual (except the car park was VERY full; little did I know that there was an event on today!) but I got some shots of birds in some SUN for a change. Which has become a rarity of late. When I arrived, there were two Wood Sandpipes in view from the peep holes on the left hand side of the path towards the main BHM hide. After a few minutes a third turned up, and the sun came out. Late afternoon sun always seems to be best for making the photos look good; nice and contrasty, as well as adequately saturated. Here's a shot of all three together (this took a while to achieve as they tend to spread themselves out a bit):

Lovely birds!

From the far end of the Black Hole Marsh reserve there was a Greenshank visible (at a fair distance) from the viewing platform:

Moving to the hide, there was a rather tame Little Egret that was determined to be photographed. This is a very rare complaint from me, but the bird was too close to fit in the frame of the camera at times... Unfortunately the Egret was on the West side of the hide so it was silhouetted when it eventually caught a fish that was big enough to be worth photographing (ahem). I'll post the pic anyway, along with a few others:

I'm quite pleased with this shot.

Another bird which showed well for people in the hide was a Grey Heron. Thankfully this one was fully in the sun. Ahh being able to use ISO 100 or even 200 on my camera is a novelty! Here's some pics of the Heron:

Not a bad afternoon of wildlife watching & photography :-).

More from BHM (and Colyton)

I spent some time at BHM yesterday, and again this evening after work. The Little Stint was there on both occasions, but distant as usual. Three Wood Sandpipers were in view yesterday, and two this evening. As I was there I thought I might as well pop over to see the hawk moth caterpillars. At least these aren't as camera shy as birds! Although I needed my macro lens really, but only had my 300mm + 1.4x extender with me.
As I was leaving the house this evening to go to BHM, I spotted a Sparrowhawk thermalling above me, and after watching it for about a minute a Hobby joined it briefly. That's 3 on patch Hobby sightings in the last month or so! I have a very lame shot which I'm not putting up (unless anyone wants proof it's a Hobby. You can just about make out the dark streaks and the 'red trousers'). Here's a shot of the Sparrowhawk. Distant but recognisable:

This is cropped a lot. The bird was probably 400-500 metres or so away.


Here's some other shots that I've taken over the last two days. Still need to get some closer ones of the Wood Sands and the Little Stint, but they keep staying away from the hide and the peep holes!

Three Oystercatchers

Little Egret





Eyed Hawk moth

Poplar Hawk moth

Poplar Hawk moth

Little Stint

Little Stint

Little Stint



  

Three Wood Sandpipers

Wood Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper



Robin. Sharp photo, worth clicking on to see intricate feather detail



Wood Sandpipers, Little Stint, Sandwich Tern, Dunlin. BHM.

After work today I went to Black Hole Marsh for a couple of hours and saw quite a lot! There were 2 Wood Sands present for most of the time I was there, although they were pretty distant (appear in pics later). These were the first I've ever seen so the visit was worthwhile just for this. However, there was also a Little Stint there (even further away, a good couple hundred yards), another first sighting for me. There were plenty of Dunlin and Little Ringed Plovers as per the current norm.

In the week (maybe thursday??) I was out on a bike ride around Seaton in the evening and saw a Hobby fly very low overhead, and abnormally slowly. This was on the stretch of road by the cemetry/wetlands car park. Only the second Hobby I've seen in Devon.

Here are a few pics from today's effort; not particularly good as the sun hid for most of the time, and the birds were too distant for my camera gear!

Little Stint

Little Stint






Dunlin




Sandwich Tern



Wood Sandpiper landing

2 Wood Sandpipers

Wood Sandpiper preening



Wood Sandpiper stretching after a preen



2 Wood Sandpipers

2 Wood Sandpipers. Both in focus ;-)