Rv D's

stil at least 5 male Red-veined Darters on the patch today and a pair ovi-positing--a shame as the pool is being drained before managed re-alignment works next week!--also Common Blue Damsels and pair of Black-tailed Skimmers

juvs

a brood of juvenile Swallows fledged from a nest under the drain bridge in Worlaby Carrs---amazingly I had only been there for about 30 minutes when a full summer adult White-winged Black Tern appeared over the Ancholme railway bridge and flew south down the river--no photos of the fly by

can u see it yet?

lest it be thought that my recent run of Nightjar successes is due to the birds being easy to find on my patch in the forest I have put in a series of pics showing just how easy they are to overlook---starting at 24mm from 5m distance

getting bigger

even from this sort of distance the cryptic plumage makes them damned hard to see

easy

now at 5m with an 85mm lens its really easy

flash

I tried out some Nightjar in flight flash shots in the early hours with the built in flash on the 30D--always knowing they would not be great I wanted to see if I could manually focus on the bird (auto not working in low light) and still get a decent shot--now with an external flash and a chain saw to remove that birch!!!!! I could be in business

another night on the heath

having arrived at 02:30 the weather was OK until 04:30 when it started to rain, and rain and more rain--I was not confident that the male Nightjar I had tracked down at 04:30 would still be where I left it when I went back at 07:30 to try and get some shots but as luck would have it he had just changed from south facing to north facing on the same branch---

Anax

female Emperor ovi-positing in a forest pool--first of the year for me--at one stage it was feeding about 150 feet up before dropping in a steep dive, rather Hobby like, and returning to the pool

Red-veined Darters

local patch shots of one of our 4 males

new dragon

on Saturday I managed to find a couple of male Red-veined Darters on my local pits but photo opportunities were poor---in better light today I managed to nail some decent shots including a head on flight effort but missed the side on fly-bys---this was a new species for me and the first records for the lcoal clay pits

bright eyed bug

this pair of bugs I need identifying

the BBC

every year I take numerous shots of dragonflies and butterflies but getting something which is a little better than before or a bit different with a nice backdrop is always tricky--using my 300mm Canon, focuses down to 1.5m, I managed to get some nice Broad-bodied Chasers this am on the local patch--much more co-operative than the Great Reed Warbler which had moved on/off

new bird at last

our second consecutive trip to Finnish Lapland and Varanger from June 5-13th was just as enjoyable as the 2005 visit and again the weather gods smiled on us most of the time---a selection of images are presented below starting with a new bird for me and one which I had abandoned hope of seeing---thanks to Petra for access to her garden feeders and some amazing close views of this pair of Pine Grosbeaks at 05:55 on our last morning a fitting finale to another northern journey--more to come no doubt!

favourite bird

since my first in 1976 adult Long-tailed Skua has remained one of my favourite birds and I never tire of photographing them as the blog shows!

more longicaudus

a few more of my many Long-tailed Skua images from the tundra

Long-tails and tundra

a combination of a superb bird and cracking habitat

phalarope pool

the pool on Storna Vadsoya where we had 80 Red-necked Phalaropes--the shot with the bird was taken with a 24mm lens

phalaropes

where to start with Red-necked Phalaropes--needless to say in lovely light I took a lot of images--birds were often close and very active, spinning feeding, fighting, mating and constantly calling in their breeding frenzy--these are just a few of my images