Pics of Bittern, Great White Egret, Marsh Harrier + more

Just an extension of my previous blog post really. I've had time to have a quick look at a few of my holiday pics. Here's some from the DSLR from the day we visited Somerset Levels. Image quality is awful as all birds were VERY distant (with the exceptions of the Little Grebe and Tufted Duck). Getting any shot in which a Bittern/Great White Egret was recognisable was my priority as I'd never seen a Bittern before, and only once seen a GW Egret.

Alert Tufted Duck (Marsh Harrier flew over)

Tiny Toad! About the same flat area as a 5p piece.

Unfortunately it was impossible to take decent pics of the Bittern, Great White Egret or Marsh Harrier due to the direction of the sunlight (although all subjects were distant anyway). Overcast would actually have been preferable to sun which was nearly directly from above. The problem is most evident on the GW Egret pics; the highlights are blown, but the underside is in shadow! Nevermind, at least we saw one!
I'll post again within the next 2-4 days with more holiday pics and info. I'll probably cover the wildlife which we saw from our accomodation. There was a fairly diverse range, and not all of it desirable...

Holiday Day 2- Somerset Levels

With todays forecast being the least bad for the next few days, Naomi and I headed to Shapwick in the hope of seeing some of the rare species which inhabit the area. Our list of birds to see consisted of Bittern, Great White Egret, Peregrine Falcon, Hobby and Marsh Harrier. We managed to see ALL of these! We also got cracking views of some not-so-rare but unexpected birds such as Little Grebes, Great Crested Grebes, and Tufted Ducks. Naomi took some photos on the new Panasonic Lumix whilst I used the DSLR. I'll put up a couple of her pics as the laptop can't read the high speed card from the DSLR, or open the RAW files. Here's one of Coots & Goldeneye:

And here's one of a Great White Egret (honest, it IS there):

Photos from the DSLR to follow when we return!! A couple of the Great White Egret pics are almost mediocure standard, but I wasn't so lucky with the other birds from our list due to how far away they were. We might go there again if the weather improves; the quality and quantity of birdlife certainly was impressive!

Holiday time!

I've now got a week off! There should be plenty of pics to post when I get back, though not taken in Devon (will mostly be Somerset, and probably also some not-so-wild animal pics; we're planning on going to a Zoo...). I'm taking a lot of camera gear so I'll most likely see nothing of interest (with the exception of at the Zoo)... You know how it is! Bye!

Hobbies and Little Owls, Seaton & Colyton

*Insert generic excuse for not blogging for approximately 5 weeks due to an excessive workload here*
After an 18-hour day of work yesterday (7am til 2am this morning minus eating time), it was good to have almost a whole hour free today. By free, I mean I was temporarily prioritising birding over work, only to resume work upon my return. In this hour I went to see some Little Owls at a private location. I saw one adult bird which seemed to be trying to entice a chick out of the nest by holding some food near the nest entrance, and hooting and screeching quite frequently. Unfortunately I didn't have time to see if it's endeavours were successful. Here's one of the shots; fairly poor but better than nothing!

Now on to Hobbies. I've seen Hobbies on patch with surprising regularity recently. I'm interested to know where the nearest breeding pair is, if anyone knows? Or if there's a single bird staying locally. I've seen one a few times over the last month, without actually looking for one. Near the beginning of the month, there was one hunting over Black Hole Marsh yet again, and last week I saw one flying rather erratically from my doorstep (Colyton). And no, I am not getting them confused with Peregrines or any other bird of prey. I have photographic evidence of the Hobbies but the pics are LAME compared to the ones I took at Exminster so I won't be posting them. So if anyone knows anything about local(ish) Hobbies, I'd be pleased to here from you! It's odd that last year was the first time I'd seen Hobbies in Colyton, and I saw them right through the breeding season. It sems as though this may also be the case this year.

It's gone mid-June, and I STILL haven't seen a dragonfly this year. I know they're about, and I'm not incapable of spotting them, I just have no free time to go out looking for them. I'll have to make do with Damsels for the time being; they're far more tolerant of the weather! I took a couple of pics of some on my one free afternoon of the month so far. I think it was actually drizzling on the day so it's not all that surprising that I didn't see any dragonflies.

Other news:
I recently purchased a Panasonic Lumix FZ150. I bought this primarily for the convenience as the lens covers a range of 25-600mm (in 35mm terms) in a small package. Also if the weather looks a bit dodgy, this camera can fit underneath a coat whereas my DSLR gear definitely cannot. The camera is very good, and although it's consistently rated as the best bridge camera on the market, it's certainly not a replacement for my Canon 7D with some 'L' glass on the front (not that you'd expect it to be). Definitely good enough to use as a back up should the weather/situation dictate it though.
Also, I'm now back up to a 6+ day working week! So with juggling multiple jobs, a girlfriend, twice-weekly choir, people wanting meetings for photography advice, other people wanting photography tutorials via e-mail, fitness & workout routine (I've started growing in the wrong direction and I am DETERMINED not to lose my 6-pack. Toned abdominal muscles if anyone doesn't know what that refers to), oh and I've got to sleep at some point.
I'll try and keep this blog going fairly regularly; if summer actually arrives and the rain & cloud become less prevalent then I'll be able to go out in the evenings after work. We shall see...

7-12 HOBBIES ?! Including a semi-decent pic...

Okay, so this may have been an off-patch venture, but with my recent Hobby sighting at Black Hole Marsh, and with a lot being seen over Exminster Marshes, I just had to go and have a look. It's really satisfying when you go somewhere, with a specific species in mind to go and see, and then you actually see it. Especially when the first Hobby seen was about 5 mins after leaving the car park and looking over the marsh. I took a few snaps of this bird just as record shots rather than for the purpose of decent pics. Here's one of the pics of it landed (light was bad; the sun was directly behind the bird so I had to wait for the sun to go IN. And needless to say it was then a bit dark. I couldn't win!!)

I then noticed a lot of Hirundine disturbance about half a mile further along the marsh. I put my binoculars up and had a look. Yep, Hobby. Then a 2nd. Then a 3rd, 4th, 5th... at least! All hunting over the same area.
Here's one of the (many) shots of it flying:

Stunning birds!

Some pics to accompany previous post inc. Hobby

Not much time so here's a few pics from the last weekend and previous weekends.
You'll have to try and excuse the terrible image quality of the bird of prey shots. With the speed they were travelling I'm surprised I managed to get any shots at all, especially as viewing time during each attack may have been 2 seconds tops until the bird had flown out of sight again.

Hobby arriving for the first attack

Hobby leaving after first attack

Sparrowhawk taking a dive at BHM

Swallow BHM

Common Sandpiper in front of Tower Hide

Redshank in front of Tower Hide

Garden shot

Hobby attacks Black Hole Marsh

After work on Saturday 5th, I motorbiked over to BHM to see what was about. First surprise was the HUNDREDS of Hirundines flying low over BHM. Various birds of prey were trying to take advantage of this. A female Sparrowhawk made 4 attacks, and a HOBBY was also present. It flew through over the marsh very hastily the first time I saw it. I knew something was around because the Hirundines started making a lot of noise and began to fly around, quickly and well above the water. About half an hour later it returned and again attacked. If only the Island hide had a transparent roof; the Hobby flew straight over it so it was hard to get a decent pic, especially with the rate at which it was flying. I'm fairly sure it caught something as after it's final attack it glided relatively slowly over towards some trees, and it certainly looked as though it was intending to land. As I was riding home, I once more saw the Hobby flying, near to where I had approximated it to have landed after the attack from earlier, so it seems as though it probably was sat somewhere in a tree for a while!! (I did walk over to Colyford marshes to see if it was in any of the trees between BHM and there, but with no success. It seems I must have walked passed it- shame)! With such a good show of birds on the 5th, I visited BHM again on the 6th, but it was much quieter. Hardly any Hirundines so I wasn't expecting any bird of prey attacks over the marsh- and there were none. The 3 Grey Plover from the Tower Hide were nice to see (my first ones).
I went for a brief walk down the Coly (Chantry end) today to see what was about. 1st Spot Fly of the year, only saw one but heard a few more. NO kingfisher activity at all. There has been none for the past 3 weeks. Unfortunately both nest sites were heavily disturbed (illegally) by the public and I'm 99% sure that the birds were driven out from their nests BEFORE the floods. Although with the Coly rising over the fields during the flood days, I'm not sure that the nests would have been successful anyway. A great shame as the young should have been fledging either this or next week (based on my findings from previous years) had the disturbance and floods not occurred.
I'll post again within the next few days (hopefully!!) with some pics as I don't have time now. There will also be some from the last 4 weeks, as I also didn't have any time to put posts up at the relevant time.