nice night

another nice evening in the forest--June 2005 has been a very different month to June 2004

Owls

Long-eared Owl juveniles are more usually heard than seen so finding four in my local wood was a good result but as usual they were all 30-40 feet up in Scots pines! contrast this with the juveniles from Woodwalton Fen taken on an early morning 05:30 visit on the 27th--the difference in pics is pretty obvious

Red-tailed what

the orange tailed buteo is still present near Laughton Forest along with its mate---no juveniles on the wing yet but they should be interesting when or if they appear--a few more shots in flight today

dragons galore

14 species of odonata logged today in NW Lincs with the first emergent Black Darter plus a record 4 Broad-bodied Chasers on a pool on my heathland patch
--here Banded Demoiselle, Emperor, Black-tailed Skimmer and Broad-bodied Chaser and Variable Blue Damselfly

returning to the Varanger trip for a few pics---a Willow Grouse here over the tundra landscape above the Tana valley 

male Willow Grouse against the tundra snow fields 

Willow Grouse pulling G force 

summer plumaged drake Long-tailed Duck on meltwater pool on the tundra 

on the longest day I set off at 23:00 and had a night on my local heathland/forest---the moon was superb up to midnight when it clouded over---Tawny and young Long-eared Owls were calling but Nightjars were strangely silent during 23:30 to 01:00---- 

prime object of the early morning vigil was a Nightjar census--following the poor showing in 2004 there appear to be a lot more birds this spring with 7 as opposed to 3 on my census area---birds are very active from 02:00 to 03:00----still no good daylight shots though! 

sunrise over the forest 

surpringly for the date there were two male and a female Cuckoo present--males were singing by 03:50 

early morning songster Tree Pipit 

the sun hitting the cobwebs on the heathland vegetation around 05:00 

03:10 a beautiful time of day in late June 

the rarer of the Cotton grasses I seem to recall but forget the name! 

an early morning woody at 04:20--note the dew on the grass 

nice to see a few more Turtle Doves this spring--this is the first one on the heath for four years 

a good sundew colony on my local heath 

sundew 

a break in Scandinavian picture posting to show a few odonata taken in the last few days of hot weather along with my first decent shots of Quail obtained early this morning in the Ancholme Valley--- 

always keen to exploit the potential of autofocus I had a go at flying damselflies on Sunday--these Common Blues were the best achieved