Well it’s been a while since I got round to blogging, I guess everything went kind of tits up with the van and Leanne’s injuries etc so I seem to have been running myself ragged over the past week or two but finally things are getting back to a slower and more normal routine.. my apologies to regular readers for the lack of posts recently..
We had a brilliant trip up the river Helford on Saturday having finally got the van back on the road.
A glorious sunny day and peace up the river.. we had lunch on a pontoon in Frenchman’s creek in beautiful sunshine and absolute silence barring the wildlife.
You can read all about it on my River Images Blog here.
Right I’ll do a quick backrun and bring you up to date as best I can..
~Thursday 4th March

Barn Owl FlyBy

FRiday 5th March

Great Crested Grebe at Drift

Saturday 6th March

Male Wheatear at Gothian sands Godrevy

Sunday 7th March

Long tailed Tits at marazion

Bitterns daily Flyby at marazion

pick of the day 7th March

Finally caught up with the water Rail at marazion

Monday 8th March

OysterCatcher at marazion

Tuesday 9th March

Meadow Pipit at Godrevy	Pipit Reflections
1st Night of the Starling Roost at Marazion;
Starlings over the Marsh	Spectacular Displays from the starlings

What a thrill to see the starlings back after so many years

Wednesday 10th march

Water Rail at Marazion	Long Tailed Tit
Day 2 of the Starling Roost	Starlings over Cheshire Homes

Thursday 11th march

Buzzard low over the Marsh

Wood Pigeon watching

Friday 12th march

Jenny Wren on the Marsh

Saturday 13th March

Egret on the Helford River

Sunday 14th March

Quiet Day at the reservoir:

After the long Haul yesterday on the River we decided for a quiet restful day, I spent a couple of hours in the woods behind the reservoir watching the birds and trying desperately to find the ruddy Woodpecker who was hammering around me all day…to no avail, he was always where I was not Still it was a beautiful day and a quiet stillness in the woods was very tranquil and peaceful..

Long Tailed Tits played freely on the trees in the sun

Long tailed Tit

I’d been reminded by a friend Rebecca of the old Lomo style of the 60′s as she’d been using a modern day variant using the same setup.. For those who are unaware of the lomo Diana, it was a camera that created amazing luminous colours in its unique process of using slide film for prints.. It became quite a cult camera and I’d honestly forgotten all about it until Becky did some experimenting with the modern version..
It inspired me to use the technique again and today was a perfect day to try it… this first shot was a robin sat on a fencepost..

Unmistakeably a Robin shot using the Lomo Diana effects

Woodpecker Holes bored in a dead tree - Lomo

I’d forgotten how much fun using different techniques can be…

Back to normal now and the lovely song of the robin ringing through the woods as he sat high in the branches basking in the sunshine

Robin singing away in the sunshine

He was silenced for a brief moment by the cry of the buzzard overhead and then the woodpeckers hammering resumed again  over the opposite side of the wood from me..

Buzzard in search of prey

coming into bud in the afternoon sun it really did feel like spring

I eventually made my way back round to the open side of the reservoir and topped off the day with the flash of blue and orange as it sped away from me and perched on a tree a long way off but close enough to see it was definitely a female Kingfisher…

Kingfisher sitting in a tree on the reservoir

Well that at least brings us back up to date so we’ll try to keep you updated through the week and hopefully all things will slowly settle back to normal now with the Splashbus back in action..

Mel ^

Hasn’t it just! this strange inbetweener time where everything seems to have either dissappeared or not yet arrived.. I suppose the swallows will be back soon and the whole cycle begins again.. aint life wonderful

One good thing is there are still 2 bitterns in residence at marazion, now I’m no expert but they could well be a pair and they seem to be hanging out together a lot.. t’would be a joy indeed to hear the boo-oom of the Bittern once again.

Two took off together today but one dropped back into the reeds in a fsaction of a second, not having moved more than a couple of feet..
Here’s the one that flew..

Bittern once more in flight over the Marsh at Marazion

Well it seems I’m writing the blog backwards today as before the bittern and our visit to the marsh we took a ride over to Nansquid’ and picked Aidan up on the way so we could eventually drop him off for his van which was being repaired..

There was still quite a breeze whooshing through the valley but I walked off down the path and up to the field where the yellow hammers hang..
Nothing much about but it was nice to see spring is definately arriving with trees bursting into buds and spring flowers showing through…

Spring flowers (Narcissus)growing on the edge of the stream

Further along the path I saw the first flutterings and tracked it with the camera into a tree.. Just a chaffinch I thought.. A chaffinch adorned with some lovely fresh colours.. a much underrated bird in my opinion, I suppose because they are plentiful they’re not on the list.. well this one certainly warranted a photograph and he sat so well for me.. I thanked him and moved on..

Male Chaffinch posing well for the camera

Apart from wrens flitting about robins and the usual array of tits there wasn’t much else around at all.. there was even a distinct lack of sea birds.

Still the streams looked nice producing a few flowing water shots..

I do love the water shots and especially I enjoy the long exposure stuff… however being so far down in the valley and realising I’d left my ND filters in the car I had to make do with 1/6th of a second as the slowest shutter speed I could get..

Slow exposure but not quite slow enough without ND filters

Ah well.. we wandered back up the valley so we could drop A for his van and head off  down to marazion for the last hour.. the wind was picking up over the North coast and yet it seemed almost non existent on the south, so my thoughts of Kites or windsurfers went out the window and I took a walk up to the bench where leanne joined me and we watched the bitterns.

I definately heard frogs in the pool just infront of the bench but couldn’t see them.. hopefully they won’t get crushed by diggers removing hides this year like thousands did last year along with a full colony of white faced miner bees that was desecrated through total inconsideration for anyone or anything but themselves.. BUT DON’T GET ME STARTED ABOUT THE RSPB!!! cos that really annoyed me last year.. enough to recreate their logo with Really Stupid at the beginning.

(calm)(breathe)

Ah well we sat and had a nice cuppa on the bench and then decided to head off home.. so I’ll leave you with a shot of a buzzard in fading light …

light a little too low by now..Buzzard on a tree in the distance.

thanks for dropping by

Mel^

Had a dental appointment today in Truro so the day was kinda slow and wasted and by the time we got out of Truro there was little time to do anything so I decided to take a trip a bit further North to Perranporth and see what was happening.

There was a tiny wave so I managed to shoot a few surf shots for Splashography though nothing much to shout home about but while we sat outside the Watering hole (Pub on the beach at Perranporth) there were a few Pipits hanging around obviously used to a few morsels of food being left by the bar food eaters (which they no doubt thought we were as we sat on the benches there) so I siezed the opportunity to grab a couple of shots for the blog..

I took a wander up the beach but unfortunately the tide was already too high to get to the caves so I had to settle for a shot from the beach.. I do love the way a setting sun brings out the dramatic colours in the rocks here..

the caves at perranporth

and of course turning round gives a perfect vision of Perranporths famous Chapel Rock..

Well it was around this time that Leanne made a trip up the beach with some tea (now there’s a surprise) and we sat together and watched the sun setting behind the clouds (unfortunately) sipping tea shooting the surfers and watching the pipits..

Made such a welcome change to just sit and watch the world go by together, with all thats been going on for us so far this year seems to have been one long race from one point to another without actually taking time to just BE!.

We wandered back to the car park as the sun went down too low for photographs and Leanne made some more tea and we had a sausage and some chips (Pomme’s Frites)  sat in the car park before meandering home down the A30..

Thanks for dropping by

Mel^