8 Nov 2006

The VERY messy Grey Wagtail, a few Bird Photos and out at Killard again.

No New Birds

Its already the 8th of November and I have not posted anything for nearly 10 days. My excuse is that it was my 44th birthday last week and Im still recovering. Not quite true!!

Well the Grey Wagtail I have mentioned in the past is still attacking the door mirrors of our car. It must be nearly a month now that this has been going on. It starts at first light and continues until the sun is almost setting. When not attacking the mirrors it is walking all over the car leaving very muddy footprints. and it poohs absolutely everywhere. I am not very good at washing cars and tend to leave it for six months or so however I couldnt drive this in its present state!!

My feeders are very popular at the moment and there are so many goldfinch and greenfinch coming that it seems to attract other birds such as the sparrowhawk again A blackcap was also seen in the hedge in front of the house. I was told today by Anthony McGeehan that this would have been a migrating bird from probably Eastern Europe. The Blackcaps that breed here in May will have long gone back to the Mediterranean or North or West Africa. I have also had a few Coal Tits to the feeders. They tend to dive in and then fly away to a safe perch nearby to eat the sunflower hearts rather than hang around. I caught this one in the split second it arrived at the top of the feeder

I have also started trying to catch birds in flight. My first image is of a bluetit. It is underexposed and taken on a very grey day and is out of focus but it shows the opacity of its wings at full extension and for all its faults as an image I quite like it.

A couple of evenings ago I went out to Killard (One of my most favourite spots in the world) I took a few photos of Bar Tailed Godwits flying by
and also tried for some shots of a grey plover but when I lay down I noticed this juvenile ringed plover which was marginally nearer and in wonderful evening light.

While I was there I also took this image of a Stonechat . I posted it on the Nature Photographers Network (UK Forum) here This is one of the forums that I would visit on an almost daily basis as quite often has superb images. Anyway one of the forum members has done some post processing in Photoshop which I dont have and has made it into an absolutely lovely image.
Than you Sean.

Eve Happy Birthday!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the pics, Craig.

Madhumati Radhe said...

we'd like some more photos of the wagtail, since in Indian poetry, the eyes of Lord Krishna is likened to the wagtail-shape. We are very curious to know more abt the shape etc, of this bird.
Te pics are really great.