Long-tailed Duck

The female Long-tailed Duck was showing well today from the hide at Loe Pool. Despite the constant rain there was still plenty of birds on and around the pool like this Goldeneye, which the Long-tailed duck would feed with. There was also Shoveler, Pochard, Reed Bunting and plenty of fieldfare and Redwing in the hedgerows.

Star Trail Test Shot

Saturday night the weather was perfect for a long exposure of the stars. My camera normally uses shutter speeds between 30 secs and 1/4000 secs, but for this picture I used the bulb function for the first time and exposed it for just over 7 minutes. This blurred the stars as the Earth rotates. Next time I've got to find something more interesting for the foreground rather than houses!

At Last, an Otter!

I've waited along time but at last I've managed to see an Otter! Every time I have gone looking for one I always come close but always stumble across something else. When I went to France a few summers ago, an English holiday maker was fishing at the edge of a small lake and tolled me there was Otter in the reeds about five minutes before I got there (always like it!). However after an hour what I thought at first thought was an otter turned out to be a Coypu. Then the next year I went back and photographed two adults with three cubs! Then back in Cornwall I saw a Mink at Drift Reservoir. I've read in the log book that people have seen Otters here but were they in fact Mink or there Otters there as well? As I found out in Scotland they can happily live along side each other. In Tobermory there is a very tame Otter which can be seen regularly (I didn't see it or any other Otter in Scotland) the closest I came to was again a Mink. But back in Cornwall, there it was an Otter and on the way back from the county boarder, I stopped of at Porth Reservoir to see the Drake Ring-necked Duck. All in all a good days work and well worth the early start and a brilliant way to end 2009!

By the way Happy New Year to every one!

Top image is the Mink at Drift.

Middle image is the Otter in Cornwall (record shot).

Bottom image is the Coypu in France.

Where it all Started

These are the first ever good photographs that I ever took, back in the days of "Digiscoping" When I used my Opticron scope and Nikon Coolpix. The Tree Sparrow is still one of my favourite photographs even though its a bit noisy. The Stonechat chick was taken at Marazion Marsh and the White-billed Diver was taken at Hayle estuary where it wintered in 2007.

Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009

These pictures got to the Final round of judging in International Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009, but unfortunately no further. Getting highly commended or possibly further is one of my personal aims and is one I would love to achieve, but I feel there is along way to go yet. The Rock Pipit was fly catching at Jubilee Pool and the Snowy Owl was taken in February at Zennor. The snowy owl was probably one of the best birds I have ever scene and we were incredible lucky to stumble across when walking back to the car. It was quite happy to sit around about 60 yards away for an hour or so. Brilliant!!

Some More Oldies

Lookin through my old files for my 2010 entries for Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year and came across these pics which I quite like. The shelducks were taken June this year along with the the Kittiwake (I was try out some different picture styles with that one). The Yellowhammer was taken near Minions.

Bluethroat Land's End 2008

Just broken up for christmas so I thaught I would upload some old photos. This bluethroat was showing extreamly well last year at Land's End and at times was so close that my lens couldn't focus on it. Canon 400d and 300mf4 + 1.4x converter at f5.6 the last shot was at iso 800 so is a bit noisy.