Scotland's Iconic White Tailed Sea Eagles Under Threat

After a successful re-introduction of the iconic  White Tailed Sea Eagle someone has created a scarmongering/inacurate article lacking any evidence or factual information to back his joke of an article.  Please follow the link below and vote on the article:

http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/opinion/question-of-the-week/question-of-the-week-for-january-18-2014-x.23197824


In short a small minority reckon they have a case to exterminate the White Tailed Sea Eagle from Scotland, it really is a pathetic bit of reporting:

No posts/photography for a while

Well I recently had shoulder surgery at St Michael's hospital in Hayle, hence I will need to have a recovery period of between 6 weeks to 4 months. That said surgery went well the hospital, surgeon and staff were all superb.  The sling can come off tomorrow and then I start the physio on Tuesday, with stitches out the following Tuesday so recovery going as expected; and I can already lift a TV remote with my duff arm lol.

No pictures now for over a week, and that could be a long time before the next ones, so keep following the blog and I will pop back when I can!

Hope you have all had a good start to 2014 and good luck with your picture taking, I look forward to seeing all your images over the next few weeks

Meanwhile here is a Red Squirrel from about 4 years ago!

Rare Blue Skies but not much else!

Well one of my typical wildlife photography days, lots of hours spent out in great light with blue skies and very little happening.  A couple of hours at Marazion were followed by a trek up Men an Tol to hopefully see some Short Eared Owls and Hen Harriers.  Well a long time spent up Men an Tol and a couple of Ravens and a Moon shot were all that showed . Still that's the bad luck used up, lol.  Might not be a post for a while as it looking likely I am having some shoulder surgery on Tuesday.  So keep following a hopefully it won't be to long until I am up and getting images again.  On the subject of following blogs I also bumped into Mike of Kernowbirder blog, he has just recently commenced wild bird photography and his blog is here with some great images already: http://kernowbirder.blogspot.co.uk/ so take a look and follow his blog if you like what you see.

Well here are the images from Saturday 11th January:

Greylag

Hybrid

Bittern

Little Egret

Buzzard

Buzzard

Raven over Men an Tol

Moon showing well in the clear afternoon sky

Marazion, Carnsew and some Blue Sky!

Well sun was out (occasionally) and some blue sky! A visit to Marazion yielded two Bittern and two Peregrine sightings in the first 30 minutes (Distant Images).  Then disaster struck the RSPB working party turned up and spooked everything, so as they were working on the marsh, I gave up and headed to Ryan's field.  Some light light for photography and some awful light also, again some distant shots but a couple close in also. A female Goosander caught a fish that was to big for it to swallow and had to fend off a que of birds who were only to willing to steal it.  After about 30 minutes the Goosander succeeded in finally swallowing the fish. I then decided to call into Carnsew to see if there were any divers around and there were five or six, possibly a black throated amongst the Great Northern but hard to tell (for a novice like me lol)  Anyhow onto some of the images:

Black Throated?

Storm Hercules Hits Porthleven

The latest storm "Hercules" to hit the Cornish coast at Porthleven was the biggest for a while. High tide was 8am so an early start, still it was worth it.  Got there and the camera AF did not work, and I didn't realise as it was only semi-light, still a quick clean of the lens/camera contacts and all was fine, however sods law dictated my best early morning shot, a stonking image was out of focus, lol. So back to cleaning all lenses, camera's etc after every shoot now like I used to!  Got some nice images some amazing waves in the harbour, pretty dangerous conditions!  Here is a small selection I will post the rest on my main website in due course.

Porthleven Stormy conditions on the 3rd January

Well the morning of the 3rd did not have the impact that was forecast, the second high tide off the day did though. High tide was about 6pm and daylight ran out about 4:30pm so it was difficult to get any decent images.  I was also after one particular image which I had in mind but did not get this time! Hence the images mostly are from one view point. After finishing taking all the care in the world not to get hit by waves etc, I did get soaked twice on the way back to the van ending up like a drowned rat, lol. So the weekend has been spent drying me and the gear out ready to see if "Big Monday's" forecast, turns out to be correct!

Drift Reservoir

Went out to get some storm images on the morning of the 3rd January, well the storm hadn't quite had the impact expected. So as not to waste a journey I managed a quick call into Drift for a few images.  It wasn't a day for wildlife photography some some general images of the dam and a Muscovy duck!.  Later in the day the latest high tide would hit Porthleven this will be shown in my next post.

Black Throated and Great Northern Divers

Well finally managed to get a parking space at Carnsew to see if any Divers were still around. Two maybe three Great Northern Divers were present and a Black Throated Diver.  Spent a long while there in fading light eventually the Black Throated Diver may a close-ish pass, the only one of the afternoon.  Any how results are below with a few local residents also in the mix! (not a bad start to the year)

Black Throated Diver

Black Throated Diver