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MONDAY 28th DECEMBER 2009

Cheddar Res

News of a Black-throated Diver at Cheddar Res saw me over in proper Somerset first thing (or as 'first thing' as I could be bothered to get up), and after an unnecessarily long walk, I eventually caught up with it. What a smart bird - and really tame, too. On some occasions it would surface just a few metres from where we were standing on the bank. That said, with the low sun there were only a couple of places around the perimeter where you could get it in some full-on decent light; all of the shots below are layered composites of three RAW conversions for each picture to keep the brightest highlights and darkest shadows.

Sadly, it was found sat on the concrete embankment looking a bit peeky on 29th; it was taken in to care but died shortly afterwards.

More of this bird at my Flickr site.

SUNDAY 27th DECEMBER 2009

The friendly Goldeneye

Goldeneye are normally impossible to get anywhere near at Chew, so it's nice to see that the male that spent last winter feeding in the channel at Herriott's Bridge has returned. Nice views of Tufted Duck, too. More from today at my Flickr site.

SATURDAY 19th DECEMBER 2009

Water Pipit

We've had our first proper cold snap this week, and a lot of the shallow margins at Chew are frozen. Luckily the cold weather has also brought with it some clear skies, which makes a nice change after all that dreariness at the beginning of the month.

The water level is now just the right height to bring a couple of Water Pipits right up close in front of Stratford hide. Good job there was some decent light as they never kept still. They were usually amongst the dead reed stems as well, so I struggled to get anything decent at all. The same went for the close-in Snipe too.

WEDNESDAY 2nd DECEMBER 2009

Cuba

Finally finished processing/tarting about with my Cuba photos from earlier in the year. Please click on the poorly-exposed Bee Hummingbird to see them.

MONDAY 30th NOVEMBER 2009

Tomorrow morning

Still there - hooray!

SUNDAY 29th NOVEMBER 2009

Pom week

I've never had anything like a decent view of a Pomarine Skua, and after having missed one at Chew last weekend (a proper rarity at the lake with only one accepted record), it seemed like a good idea to pop over the estuary and look at one which had been lingering about at Beachley Point, just the other side of the Severn Bridge.

It was feeding on a minging old sheep carcass in the saltmarsh, and gave us some really good views. Shame about the weather though, which was shocking all day - just rain and awful light throughout, which meant that getting any decent flight shots was next to impossible. The photo of the bird sat on the seaweed below was taken at 1/80 sec at f/5.6 with the camera set at 800 ISO.

I thought that it would have been the same sub-adult bird as the one I saw at Severn Beach last Wednesday during that ill-fated petrel dip (a whole day of my life which I will never get back). But this was a different one - in worn adult summer plumage (except there are a few fresh winter plumage black and white barred feathers appearing on the flanks and lower scapulars).

Just as I was driving away from the site, Derek Angel phoned. It's always a worry when he does that. He'd just found a Pom Skua at Chew, which was busy killing a Common Gull in the gull roost. What are the chances of that? Bugger. I just managed to get to Nunnery Point at dusk, in time to be shown a brown blob three-quarters of the way across the lake. They were the worst views of any bird I've ever had anywhere. Perhaps it'll still be there tomorrow morning...?

You can see one of these pictures a bit bigger on my favourites page.

SUNDAY 8th NOVEMBER 2009

Crappy light again

The weather forecast on the internet said that this morning's cloud and rain would clear in the afternoon, and I would have a few hours of splendid sunshine in which I could take some nice photographs of the Red-throated Diver at Chard Res. What bollocks. It cleared for about ten minutes whilst I was on the motorway and then clouded over again, probably for the rest of the year.

Still, I did get some nice close views of it and a few ok-ish high ISO shots which would later pose a severe test for Messrs Photoshop and Neat Image. I even quite liked the one of it in the reflected sunset, in the end...

SATURDAY 7th NOVEMBER 2009

Crappy light

On the one hand, winter gives us plenty of wildfowl, seagulls, Starling roosts and all that, and on the other it gives us about half an hour of decent light per week. Chris Stone phoned to tell me there was a Black-necked Grebe at Barrow, close to the wall which might be good for some photos. It was nice and sunny, so all should have been well.

When I got there, a big grey cloud came over and it pissed down with rain. After the shower had passed and the sun came out again, the only place I could photograph the grebe from was looking right into the evil low winter sun. Still, I did manage one or two photos which didn't go straight in the bin. Not as nice as the ones I took at Cheddar last winter though.

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