Years End Bird Sightings

With a couple of nice birds within easy reach I've been out with my camera a few times. Firstly I wanted to see a Great Northern Diver (Gavia immer) which is one of my favourite birds, but I've never seen one in summer plumage, this one was almost still in full summer which is unusual for the end of December. Second up were 7 Two Barred Crossbills (Loxia leucoptera), which I went to see last week but missed them, but yesterday all 7 were seen 5 male and 2 female. Today I went out with Matt with the sole aim of trying to photograph Red Kites (Milvus milvus) which put on a nice show, with around 10 birds seen plus a couple of Buzzards.

A Day Looking For Otters but Nowt Doing

Today I went to a reserve in North Yorkshire where Otters have been seen during the day, as is always the case when you specifically go looking for one species you don't see it. However there were plenty of birds around although difficult to photograph.

 

Bullfinch

 Guelder Rose

Mute Swan

Longhorn Cattle



Male Blackbird

Mute Swan

A few more Bird pics with new camera.

Fresh from doing the Saturday morning Hillsborough park run (no PB this week) the sun came out late morning so I was keen to try and get some more photos with my new camera. First up were a group of House Sparrows which were feeding on nettle seeds, these seemed quite and was pleased with one particular photo. I also saw a few Fieldfare, Red Grouse, Goldfinch a Sparrowhawk and a few other bits and bobs.

A few pictures from the last week

Just a few photos from my new camera which I am very pleased with so far, its certainly sharper when I crop the photos down. There are a lot of winter thrushes around but early in the season when there are a lot of berries around they are quite nervous. I also found a Angle Shades moth in my porch.

 Male Chaffinch

 Blue Tit

 Kestrel

 Redwing

 Angle Shade Moth

 Female Blackbird

The Herping season comes to a late end so time for a new Camera

My trusty old Nikon d80 was getting a bit long in the tooth its been a fantastic camera but it was time for an upgrade. I considered getting a full sized sensor camera, but having looked at reviews the Nikon d7100 came up as being equal to the d610 and was considerably cheaper so I have plumped for one of those. Not really had much chance to use it yet and with the weather at the weekend there didn't seem to be much wildlife showing but my trusty old Little Owl came up trumps.

 View across Daledyke

 Fieldfares and Redwings

Season coming to an End

October is the month when you have the last chance to see reptiles here in the North. Grass snakes and slow worms have already curled up for the winter. However Adders and Common Lizards can still be seen. At one of my most reliable sites cattle have been allowed to trash vegetation, it is supposedly now being fenced off but we will have to wait and see what damage has been done in spring next year. Anyway I could only find one female and one lizard in good conditions, compare this to last Octobers post before it was being managed for conservation (what a great job they are doing). There were also lots of dragonflies around.