Had a couple of hours last evening and again this morning on the rising tides on the Camel estuary at Trebetherick Point for passage waders.
There were lots of ringed plover, sanderling, dunlin & a few knot that were dodging the incoming waters and trying to grab a bit of "shut-eye" at the same time.
Here are a few images from the session.
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| Juvenile Ringed Plover |
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| Ringed Plover |
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| Dunlin |
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| Juvenile Knot |
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| Juvenile Knot |
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| Juvenile Knot in the surf spray |
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| Turnstone |
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| Sanderling |
Not for the first time this summer have I had a brood of greenfinches at the feeders.
This young bird was fluttering its wings to draw the attention of its parent to provide food.
I've also had over 40 house sparrows daily and every few days the numbers increase with new youngsters arriving. Our neighbours roof has produced 2 broods but others still seem to be fledging.
It's been a great year for breeding birds in Cornwall, due I reckon to an "ordinary" summer of a bit of rain and a bit of sun but no great excesses of either.
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| Greenfinches |
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| Greenfinches |
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| Greenfinches |
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| Greenfinches |
The apron strings managed to stretch to the garden today and got a few nice shots of small tortoiseshell butterfly feeding on water mint in my pond.
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| Small Tortoiseshell butterfly |
I spotted over a dozen dark bush crickets this morning in the low vegetation as the sun was warming up.
I also found a long -abdomen wasp that I suspect may be an Ichneumon wasp but I'm not sure.
No doubt someone will put me right!
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| Ichneumon wasp |
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| Dark bush cricket |
A quick walk with the dogs and I found this pair of flies in the act of creating a new swarm for the summer season.
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| Flies copulating |
I've been photographing at a barn owl site for several weeks now and have not blogged any photos until I knew that the young have succesfully fledged and are now free flying.
They managed to get 4 youngsters away and that must have been due to a plentiful supply of short tailed voles and common shrews which seemed to be the main prey items.
The birds were very late evening feeders which seems to suggest an abundance of prey but did present a few photographic challenges.
Many photos were high ISO or slow shutter speeds and at times I resorted to flash when I'd established the birds lack of concern for it.
In fact when there was no wind and all was quiet the slight noise of the image stabilising locking focus often prompted a stare more than anything else.
Here are a few images, the others can be viewed on my website by clicking here......
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| Barn Owlets await a feed |
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| Male Barn owl with short tailed vole |
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| Male Barn owl with short tailed vole |
An hour or so out with the dogs in the lane behind my house yielded some good butterflies this morning. It was great weather and they were just warming up before spending the day on the wing.
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| Comma |
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| Comma - underside showing white comma mark |
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| Gatekeeper |
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| Meadow brown |
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| Ringlet |
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| Peacock |
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| Holly blue |
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