male Hen Harrier

one of my favourite birds -- not close of course as is obvious from the  images but now I have its hunting area sussed out maybe better luck next time

bathing Merlin

well it kept trying but every time it settled in a puddle on this track up came some dog walkers, ignoring me there with a camera pointing at it and walked past flushing the bird! nice to be considerate

Barn Owl

low light, low cloud, 7D and 400 5.6 320th/ sec hand held -- and it shows

Shorelarks

this flock were quite vocal with the two adults making some of the calls I last heard on the tundra at Varanger in June -- maybe should have done a seawatch!

Snow Buntings and Twite

spent most of the day on the Lincs coast trying to get some images of these delightful birds -- some success but the phrase could do better always seems to be relevant

not so Common Loon

in the 40 years I have been watching the local pits I have seen just 8 Great Northern Divers but the latest was in Feb and April this year so it was a good job that someone was out birding this morning (my excuse I was editing the 2008 Lincs Bird Report) so after a quick phone call I managed to get a few shots of this juv before it decided that the pits were not the place for it and it flew off in advance of a heavy rain  and hail storm --also on the patch on the Humber today 15+ C Scoter, 2 Scaup, Bonxie west (ND) adult Med Gull Chowder and a Peregrine on the bridge tower this evening so a decent haul in the rather less than pleasant weather

local Whoopers

a family party of 2 adult and 3 juv Whoopers on the patch mid morning and then as the heavens opened again a flock of 16 came from the west and went east over the Humber bridge

oddments

the Teal flock flushed by one dog and one owner at least the waders were flushed by a Peregrine

Black-tails

I watch them and count them so often you get to love them eventually! a good percentage of the wintering colour ringed birds seen again today

Green-winged Teal moult

this drake still looks virtually the same as it did 3 weeks ago with several brown upper flank feathers whereas 95% of the drake Eurasian Teal present have moulted into full plumage over the same time period which seems somewhat odd?

Dark-bellied x Pale-bellied Brent Geese ?

While looking for the Black Brant today (failed to find it again) came across this family party that appears to comprise a very aggressive adult male Dark-bellied Brent Goose, female Pale-bellied Brent and 3 hybrid juveniles -- I watched them for about an hour and there seemed no doubt that they were a family unit -- what was more surprising though was the fact that there was at least one other goose with the party that appeared to be a hybrid with intermediate characters but was not a juvenile and so could have been a 2cy bird -- it was close to the family all the time and appeared to consort with them even joining the male in chasing other geese -- any comments would be appreciated at my email address

Marsh Harrier

a young male from today

Barn Owl

Red-necked Phalarope comparisons

7D v 1DIII -- guess which is which -- all have been Neat Imaged -- will post some real tests when I get chance; similar conditions today both cameras with 500 f4 and no converter -- low ISO noise on 7D at 500 ISO looks bad strangely but IQ of 1D seems to be winning the day

Wigeon 7D

the sort of thing I envisage using it for with the 1.6 and possible large crop for Id purposes

Marsh Harriers on test

as some may have noticed several of the last uploads excepting the Brents have been with a 7D -- have had little time to really test it or even read the manual but some of these harrier shots look promising

a few more Red-necked Phalaropes

muddy boots, tripod, trousers, bum and camera but hey ho -- a tendency to just get frame fillers fails to capture the bird and its habitat -- the flight shot was at 08:00 at a 400th sec at 640 ISO but its different!

hrota

at least 5 adults and a single first-winter birds in the Pyes Hall flock today

flocks

including the largest Stock Dove gathering I have ever seen; 500+ birds with 355 spotted out in the lower shot

patch tick Phalarope

after Spoonbill Red-necked Phalarope was one of the commonest birds I had never seen on the local patch so many thanks to Ian S for the call about this bird feeding on Chowder Ness this afternoon; presumably a gale victim it is in moult to first-winter with some grey crown feathers coming through plus the new grey scaps; it was feeding for a while in a narrow channel and pulling out lots of flat-worms before flying to the shore where it was flushed by the inevitable dog walker

extreme Whoopers and Green-winged Teal

when this family came by I had both converters on the 500 trying to get a little bit better images of the Green-winged Teal and was in manual focus mode --amazed that they were roughly OK

Peregrine, Black-tail et al

images from 14.11

a few more Bittern action shots

what a privilege to watch this bird feeding for 4 hours today; it caught 3 big fish and 2-3 small ones in that time; look like perch to me from the stripy sides but I am no fish expert

Snow Bunting

came across two birds today on a survey -- its a place where I expect to find a Desert Warbler one day but then again I have been birding there since 1969 without finding anything more exciting than a Great Grey Shrike and a Red-foot so maybe its not such a good place for asian vagrants

Green-winged Teal less than a record

fog, mist 200m away; found this bird this morning -- in spite of 90% of the Teal coming a lot closer it stayed distant all day and slept for most of the time

Bittern thankyou

not a lot of light at 16:00 yesterday but what a bird -- the last one I saw perform like this on the patch was in 1994

a few birds from Monday

Bittern day

4 individuals but just the one co-operative bird -- I fancy it is a newly arrived bird from the east --- one or two to show how they can disappear into minimal reed cover

patch Marsh Harrier 7.11

the highly abraded juvenile and the 2cy 3rd winter male that is still in residence around his breeding site

patch images 7.11

a long day in the hide but some nice rewards

Teal

the mirror image of the two female Teal on take off suffers of course because the lower bird is not sharp but does that detract from the composition?

Black-tailed Godwit flock

Having photographed these birds for a few years I am always looking for some different light or a different way to try and represent the mass of birds --- it is difficult to show 3000 - 5000 waders and get the impression of the vibrance of the flock over to viewers; here are a few attempts from a short morning stint before the fog descended

Bearded Tits

Dark-bellied Brents

by crawling through the marram I actually got some moderate images of the typically flighty Lincs Dark-bellied Brents at Donna today -- this flock seemed to have a good % of juveniles in family groups which makes a pleasant change after several bad seasons but there were only about 250 birds in the flock so the % of young may well not be representative