Spring Selection

Firstly apologies for not posting for a while, it has been a busy time for me. Having been made redundant from my job at the end of March, I decided to set up myself up in business offering lake design and rehabilitation consultancy services which has taken up a lot of time to get  up and running. Also at the end of April I managed to fall over, causing damage to both my camera and lens and so that was out of action for a while being repaired. Despite all these time constraints, I have still managed to  squeeze in quite a few short sessions although have not had much time to go through the images.

I do love Spring and how everything bursts into life after the long winter days and the air is once again filled with bird song. This year we had a fairly cold period during April with northerly winds blowing from the north keeping the temperatures unseasonally low.  This certainly seemed to put a temporary hiatus on bird migration northwards with many summer visiting migrant species being delayed in their arrival.

Anyway enough of my ramblings lets get on to some photographs......

I spent quite a bit of time this Spring photographing Black Grouse but I intend to dedicate a post to them so will just give you hint of what is to come with this photo of a male bird calling at sunrise.

I had a meeting up in Newcastle and as usual when I head in that direction, took the scenic route home to take in some moorland and red grouse.

Some time has been spent with the resident birds of the coastal strip that runs along the top of the Wirral Peninsula. The coastal gorse looked amazing this year in flower with swathes of bright yellow and it seemed a good opportunity to try and get some birds perched on it where possible. Skylark, Linnet, Wren and Stonechat were the main species  photographed.

While driving round one morning I suddenly remembered a report from a couple of years back of Mandarin Duck that used a small pond to pair up before breeding. The ducks are only present on the pond for a very short period so I was lucky to find them there when I went to check it out.

Of course one of the great parts of Spring is the passage and arrival of migrant birds. This spring I saw a report of a drake Garganey being present on a local lake and decided to go straight there. It was fortunate that I did as the bird had left and continued on its passage the next day. It is a while since I have put a Garganey in front of the camera so it was a pleasure to photograph one of these beautiful waterfowl, even though conditions and access at the lake present numerous challenges.

I am always amazed at the small migrants birds and think about the epic journey they have made from the south. For example the Wheatear coming up from Africa.

This is particularly the case for warblers and the long distances covered by these tiny birds weighing a few grams. Below are a selection of these travellers including Chiffchaff, Grasshopper Warbler, Willow Warbler and Whitethroat filling their air with their varied songs.

I also managed to find one of my favourite summer visiting warblers, the Wood Warbler that fills the woodlands with its amazing electric song.

I will finish off the photographs of this post with one last species which is the Whinchat. The males when they first arrive look amazing but the colour often quickly seems to fade so it is always best to try and catch them early. Photographs of the female and male birds are below.

In two days time, I am heading north on my annual overseas trip. This years sees me returning to Arctic Finland and Norway with the majority of the time being spent on the Varanger Peninsula. Exciting prospects ahead and it will be good to return after my previous visit 6 years ago. Hoping the unpredictable weather is kind and that there will be plenty of photographs to share with you on my return.

A Few from Spring

With it being foggy and murky grey outside all day, it was a good time to catch up with a bit of the photo processing backlog. So I turned my thoughts back to Spring which is such a contrast to the view out of the window today. Early mornings filled with bird song, migrants arriving in waves, the birds looking bright and immaculate and the freshness of the new growth bursting forth from the plants. Such a vibrant time of year and always a pleasure to be out at first light and soaking it all in.

So for this post I just thought I would take a few of the bird images from last Spring and put them together. What could say Spring more than a bird on some willow catkins. In this case a colourful Goldfinch.

Living by the coast there is a reasonable number of gorse bushes and normally good flocks of Linnet. I always associated one with the other as the males often use the top of these vibrant yellow flowered bushes to advertise their territory in song.

A bird that is particularly noticeable in the Spring is the Meadow Pipit.  Huge numbers migrate and on certain days it seems they are everywhere. Of course these are a favoured 'victim' of cuckoos who time their migration to arrive when other birds are beginning to lay eggs.  

Many birds look at their best at this time of year as the males feathers finally wear into their fresh breeding plumage. This male Reed Bunting is nearly there with just a few tawny coloured feather ends to change before the transformation is complete. 

One of the earliest migrant arrivals is the Northern Wheatear with the birds typically arriving locally from their long flight up from Africa around mid-March. They bring with them a real injection of striking colour and contrast into what is still a generally drab landscape in the early Spring with the remnants of winter still evident. Often these arriving birds are very flighty and have an annoying habitat of tending to stay just out of camera range, displaying a flash of white rump as they keep their distance ahead of you.

Into April and migration is in full swing with the arrival of warblers and Whinchat. These birds look amazing when they arrive although the orange colours of the breast and flanks seems to quickly fade once they have been here a short while. From a photography point of view they are definitely a bird to try and catch as they arrive.

 Of course Spring is not just about sights, it is also about sounds. Unfortunately I did not get much time to photograph warblers this year with the exception of the Willow Warbler. This bird's song of descending notes I know very well, having had one singing all through the 'night' outside my bedroom when I stayed in Arctic Norway. The songster did not help with me struggling to get to sleep with the perpetual daylight outside.

Well having done this post and reminisced over Spring the grey murk outside suddenly looks a bit brighter. Also it has got me thinking that I should start thinking about and planning my trip abroad for next year. North, South, East or West...decisions...decisions.

Time for a Few Birds

I have been having a lot of fun photographing brown hares this spring and started feeling I had been neglecting the birds a little. This was particularly the case as I could feel spring gathering around me with various migrants coming through and arriving locally. So it was time for a bit of bird time. Also I wanted to get in a little bird practice as I am away to Romania in three weeks where the majority of subjects will be birds. This post is a small collection of different birds photographed recently from a series of often short sessions in various places.

Starting of with a trip down south recently to visit my parents which resulted in a brief stop-off in Bushy Park to break up the journey. The avian soundscape of the London Parks has been transformed by a flourishing population of Ring-necked Parakeets, with their constant sqwarking from the trees. Their vivid green colours certainly add a splash of the exotic to these park lands. This is a species of considerable debate given the suggested competition between these introduced invading species and our endemic tree nesting birds. The light was not great on the day so I was looking for birds in places where I could avoid the sky which either meant low down or with a tree trunk filling the frame.

On one of the ponds in the park there were three Pochard. This is a duck species that has frustratingly evaded by efforts to photograph it and as on this occasion I have only managed a few photographs. This pair of Pochard where in the middle of mating with the female getting half 'drowned' in the process.

Moving closer to home, I have undertaken the occasional early morning or evening session before or after work. My good friend Gerhard created, with quite a lot of sustained effort, an 'out in the wild' feeding station for Linnet. These are quite a flighty species and so it provided a good opportunity to get some photos and watch the birds up close.  His efforts paid off attracting increasing numbers of the birds, which were mainly young birds or females but there were a couple of better coloured males amongst them. They tend to be a slightly overlooked species  which most will associate with loose bounding twittering flocks, but a good coloured male up close is a fine looking bird.

It was nice to see good numbers of Skylark along the local coastal strip. There liquid song dripping down from their high display flights is always a pleasure to the ears.

Always a tricky subject in flight.

This next photograph was a completely unplanned bonus as the bird landed next to me in a bramble patch whilst trying to photograph some warblers. A male Reed bunting in all the finery of its full spring plumage.

Over the last week or so I have finally turned my attentions to the increasing numbers of arriving warblers. These birds really bring an area to life as the once silent reeds, scrub and brambles suddenly takes on a whole new life with the incessant whirling, clicks, and scratchy warbles of various species trying to lay claim to a breeding patch. To appreciate this at its best requires the alarm clock to be set to a very early time which will leave you feeling fuzzy headed with tiredness by the early afternoon. Its worth it though.

A Sedge Warbler establishing its territory over an area of brambles from four different song perches.

Another lover of the security provided by a bramble patch is the Grasshopper Warbler. Now I did intend to avoid these this year but then again I say that every year and was once again drawn in by that mesmerizing insect like song. For me watching these birds broadcast their song is one of the real pleasures at this time of year and no doubt I will find myself drawn to them next April.

Flighty Twitters


The most common view of a Linnet is of a small flock of about a dozen twittering small 'brown' birds in characteristic 'bouncing' flight across an area of grassland. There is quite a good population locally that use the habitat of the coastal rough grasslands and nest in clumps of gorse. However, the status of the national population is not great with the birds showing a 57% decline between 1970 and 2008 and therefore afforded a 'Red Status' of conservation importance.

From a photography point of view they are generally a difficult bird to get close enough to as you need to get past the many keen eyes of the flock. Therefore they tend to be a very flighty species often disappearing before you have got anywhere near them. The exception to this is very occasionally when you find a solitary bird in the Spring but it still takes a good deal of crawling and using any available cover to get close. This is how I have managed to photograph most of the birds in the past although crawling around through spike-laden gorse bushes in not recommended.

A couple of friends have been working hard to try and get Linnet feeding in one area through daily and liberal feeding. It has taken a lot of effort but finally the birds started using the area and free food supply regularly. This has probably helped these slim small finches through the lean times of late winter and early spring when seed availability is generally in short supply. Once you get birds feeding in an area like this, then the photography suddenly becomes much easier and you have much more control over the situation in terms of light direction, backgrounds and perches.

It is not until you are up close to these birds for a while that you realise that they are actually very beautiful and not just the plain brown bird that you thought. The black and white wing and tail feathers, chestnut coloured back and streaking across the breast all add up to a very striking bird.

The males in particular can be particularly attractive as they develop a reddish pink blush to the breast and forehead feathers. This red colouration shows quite a bit of variation and as you can see is not particularly well developed in the photograph above. However, in some birds the red gets stronger through the year as the light tips of the new feathers wear revealing the red breast below. There were two well coloured males visiting the feeding area and I was particularly keen to try and get some photographs of these birds.

The other point that a close encounter reveals is that their calls are much more complex than the twitter of the birds in flight and they have quite a repertoire of call and song. They were once a popular cage bird back in the times when such practices were legal and definitely sound a bit canary like in elements of their song.

Hopefully this has given you a bit more insight in to the Linnet and may give you a greater appreciation of them the next time you see a passing twittering flock of these wonderful little finches.