Year Two Week Ten - Birds Spotted 2

Sorry for the lack of updates but the weather really has been terrible.
I'm back though, with a new update as well as a new lens. A beastly 600mm canon L prime which I'll hopefully be getting to grips with over the coming months.

I've got two new birds this week, both of them thanks to a trip to my sisters in Wales.

Tawny Owl
While I saw Tawny Owls a few months ago at my sister's house, I couldn't get a good shot of them.
They live on her property, often sitting a foot or two from her window as she does the washing up or watches TV. There are 5 in total, with three of them being juveniles. I didn't take too many shots as I didn't want to disturb them, but I'm happy with the images I managed to get.
Tawny Owls are relatively common throughout most of the UK and efficient, deadly hunters. They are amazingly quiet and it was incredibly eerie to turn around and have one looking at you without even hearing it land nearby. They were waddling about the grass looking for morsels and seemed completely uninterested as I drew close by to them.
It's thought that around 50,000 pairs live in the UK and as a result it enjoys green status from the RSPB. It's obviously a hard bird to see in the day, but sometimes like to sun itself on branches. This now marks the second owl I've seen in the wild, with the Little Owl being the first.

This little fellow was perched roughly 25 feet away from me.

Dipper

Every time I've visited my sister's I've wanted to see Dippers. After all, they actually nest in the river that runs through the bottom of her property. Every time I go I never see them, so much so that my nickname is Dipperless.

This weekend looked no different and despite seeing one fly across our landrover as we made the horrible ascent over a local mountain, I didn't see one. My brother in law did, prompting me to endure lots of gnat bites and some cold hours in the Welsh drizzle, but after three days it was to no avail.

I stopped off at one more location as we were travelling home and there it was. Sitting loud and pretty and calling out to a no doubt hidden mate. I got my Dipper!

These birds are incredible. They have boney bits on their feet that allow them to grip the rocks of riverbeds so they can hunt for food. They can even swim under water, where the look for caddis fly larvae and other delicacies.

This one is strictly a record shot as it was a good 50 odd feet away and I had to view it through a bridge. It's easily identifiable though thanks to that big white breast.

Here's the record shot. Not the greatest, but that's easily a Dipper!

A bigger crop through a gap I found.

And just to give you a sense of how difficult the shot was.

Despite these two awesome birds, Wales was a little too overcast and wet for anything else.

Luckily I headed off to Blashford on the way home :)

Common Sandpiper. The closest I've got to one.

I forgot my 1.5 TC, so this is a crop. Still happy with the detail though!

Pleased with this crop.

Little Grebes are tiny.

Black-Headed Gull.

Black-Headed Gulls and a Lesser Black-Backed Gull.

Year Two Week Eight - Birds Spotted 1

Sorry for the lack of updates, but personal things have prevented me from posting recently.
I do have a new record bird from my time in Wales last weekend however.

Pied Flycatcher
Pied Flycatchers are dainty birds that come over to the UK for the summer. While the males can be resplendent in gorgeous black and white plumage, the female birds are far dowdier. I actually saw this one a long, long way off while I was trying to tempt birds to a nearby, more convenient viewing post I'd set up. Although I could see it was exhibiting typical flycatcher behaviour (darting from a perch before returning to it) I was too full of beer and bacon to get any closer to it. It didn't help that the weather was particularly brutal last week with very little sun that meant I got some pretty poor photos of it.
Although on the Amber List in the UK, around 20,000 breeding pairs can still be found here each year, and I'm delighted that I finally saw one, even if I had to get it identified after I got home. That's little brown jobs for you though, they can be a bugger to tell apart.

Admittedly not the best of pictures, but it's easy to tell it's a flycatcher.

The image becomes a little more impressive when you see how far away it was!

With the Pied Flycatcher I'm now up to 136 photographed birds with another 136 left to find!

Sadly I don't have too many decent shots for you this week, so I'll leave you with the ones that I didn't actually bin. 

Pied Wagtails were plentiful and always eating.

The poor light meant I soon gave up trying to get flying swallows.

Amazingly, my sister has Swallows nesting in her actual porch.

A pair of baby Great Tits in undergrowth.

A Skylark, it was way to wet to crawl around, which limited how close I could get.

A distant Whinchat.

Shooting a Swallow at 7am in the morning on an overcast day at 1/4000 is asking for trouble :P

Week 52 19-04-2015 Birds Spotted 1 The first year is finished!

Well that's it, I've had my first year on the blog and I feel it's gone pretty well :)
I've seen quite a few different birds, including many I've never seen before and I also feel that my photography has improved as well.

I'm currently deciding on my strategy for the coming year. I don't think I'm going to reset, but I am finding it hard to spot new species, which might make it a little boring for anyone that's reading. It's been a few weeks since my last update, so I've got quite a few pictures to go through. I hope the people that have been following my have enjoyed the entries so far and thanks to those who have left comments :)

Crossbill
I've never seen a Crossbill, so when my sister's husband started posting pictures of them in his back garden I knew I had to travel up to Wales to see them for myself. It's worth nothing that my sister's back garden consists of 10 acres and is in the middle of nowhere in Wales, making it a haven for birds.
The Crossbill gets its name due to its mandibles which are crossed and misshapen. While it looks like a deformity, it's actually a very specialised way of feeding on various conifer seeds. Although they are some 40,000 pairs breeding in the UK, I've never seen any before. The three we saw at my sisters were all females (the males are a distinctive brick red).

I'm now on 132 photographed birds for my first year, which is pretty good going.

Although I've not had any new birds to report, I have been to a few places recently.

Here's a rundown of where I've been.

Blashford Lakes

Went here on the first of August. I spent most of my time in the woodland hide, where I was able to get some decent photos.

Male Chaffinch.

Dunnock.

Singing BlueTit.

Reed Bunting, which was quite surprising.

Great Tit.

Goldfinch.

Robins were everywhere.

Another Blue Tit.

Reed Bunting number 2.

Another Robin.

Another Goldfinch.

Robin number 3.

A Coot was at the Tern hide.

So was a Gadwell.

And a Lapwing got quite close as well.

Portland Bill/Radipole Lake

Went here on the Bank Holiday Monday. No new birds, but some interesting stuff all the same.

A lousy shot of my first Wheatear of the year.

A hungry Jackdaw.

A Pied Wagtail.

A distant singing Skylark.

Rook in flight.

Raven in flight. The wedged tail is a good giveaway.

Herring Gull.

Distant Skylark.

Distant Wren.

Overhead Skylark.

Herring Gull.

Oystercatcher.

Radipole Lake

We went here after Portland. No new birds, but nice to go all the same :)

Hooded Merganser.

Black-Headed Gull.

Chaffinch.

Female Tufted Duck.

Gadwell feeding.

Little Egret in flight.

Shelducks.

Tufted Duck having a splash.

A distant Little Egret keeping watch.

Nesting Canada Goose.

Wales

I went up to stay with my sister on the 10/11 of April, which is where I saw the Crossbills. I took my new 1.4 teleconverter, but unfortunately the light wasn't the best, meaning many of my shots came out rather ropey. I'm happy with the following though.

This was taking with the teleconverter at around 7am on a cloudy day, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. They have a group of 5 pheasants appear every morning.

One good thing with the TC is that you can get far close to birds than normal. This Robin was about 5 foot away.

As was this Chaffinch.

These Great Tits were fighting in a distant field. I've no idea if it was to the death.

A very distant Grey Wagtail.

I'm pleased with this Treecreeper shot.

A singing Chaffinch.

A Wren, this wasn't with the TC.

The Red Kites weren't playing fair and were very high up in the sky.

And one final shot of the Pheasant who appeared in the late afternoon.

So that's it for the first year. I broke my goal of 100 different birds by nearly a third. So it will be interesting to see what happens in the following year :)