Galana's Fifth - The only way from here is UP!

[Soukous]

You are getting a bit slapdash with your photo selection Fred. Don't you have any ebc's of the Eider & Canada Geese?

[xelas]

28 minutes ago, Soukous said:

You are getting a bit slapdash with your photo selection Fred. Don't you have any ebc's of the Eider & Canada Geese?

Must be that Fred not only has had time to clean all of the windows of his house but also have time to clean the lens of the camera! Lovely photos!

[Kitsafari]

What a beautiful Eider with his pink blush of a chest and the apple green neck. 

And while googling the species I saw the breeding plumage of the King eider - wow what a beaut!

[PeterHG]

Agree on this. What a handsome duck!

[Zim Girl]

Really lovely Eider duck.

[Galana]

9 hours ago, Soukous said:

You are getting a bit slapdash with your photo selection Fred. Don't you have any ebc's of the Eider & Canada Geese?

Sorry I messed up again Martin @SoukousI just don't know what comes over me sometimes.

To make up for this and to reassure you and others here is one I also did yesterday of  a Rock Pipit.

I did not count it.

 

But I have to agree that the male Eider is a beautiful bird so not all is lost apart from my reputation.

 

Edited March 2, 2021 by Galana
additional text.

[shazdwn]

17 hours ago, Kitsafari said:

What a beautiful Eider with his pink blush of a chest and the apple green neck. 

And while googling the species I saw the breeding plumage of the King eider - wow what a beaut!

That made me look - and wow, you are right!

[Dave Williams]

You are getting way ahead of yourself Fred. A count of 60 and some excellent photos too. ( The Eider is incredibly difficult to get the exposure correct due to contrasting colours and lack of detail in the downy feathers, you did really well).

 

Anyway, to slow you down I have arranged 21 days of lockdown for the I.O.M. so make sure you stick to it

[Galana]

1 hour ago, Dave Williams said:

( The Eider is incredibly difficult to get the exposure correct due to contrasting colours and lack of detail in the downy feathers, you did really well).

Thank you for that praise indeed sir.

The truth is different. During my time I participated in various works and my mentor had a saying "we did not know it was impossible so we went ahead and did it anyway".

Also do remember that if you put a typewriter in front of a chimpanzee for long enough it will eventually type out a readable sentence.

I will leave the rest unsaid.

[Galana]

It's been a week without any offering so perhaps an explanation may be due. After months of an Island free of the dreaded Covid the darn thing sneaked ashore at the beginning of the month so we have been in lockdown for a week now. Virulent Kent strain that got into schools and we know what super spreaders kids can be. Happily with 39% vaccinated at a rate of 1000 souls per day things are looking good.

 

Coincidentally the outbreak arrived along with bad weather so staying inside is no real hardship.

I mean;

would you want to go looking for birds on days like this?

Our twice daily Ferry leaving for England.

 

I hope the bloody virus got seasick!

 

Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Galana

[Peter Connan]

That first photo looks like it was taken through a wet newspaper!

 

Hope the weather and the lockdown ease up soon.

[Galana]

7 hours ago, Peter Connan said:

That first photo looks like it was taken through a wet newspaper!

Could well have been. I have all sorts of tricks to keep my hand in with EBCs.

(Actually a scan of yesterdays Newspaper as I was fascinated by the angle of those Trailers on the loading deck. Hope they are chained down hard.)

 

Weather so bad today our lovely boat, "Ben my chree" (Girl of my dreams in English) did not sail at all.

Thanks for the good wishes.

[Dave Williams]

I could see a ship similar to this on the horizon this morning. Looked really rough out your way Fred. It was actually the Liverpool-Dublin ferry, the Norbank.

[Galana]

Just to show I am regaining my previous standards I rolled my Covid Bubble north this morning.

Northern Gannet.

 

Common Gull (or Ring Bill at a stretch).

Either way I am not counting them just yet. I can do better (or worse) than this.

 

A couple of product improvements to keep in practice.

Don't know what the Cormorant hoped to find in that mucky farmer's scrap yard pond.

Maybe it had an Iron deficiency?

[Galana]

Well having had to visit town I extended my 'exercise allowance' a touch to visit a local pond 5 km away.

I was seeking a rumoured Pintail as whilst I will see 100s of them in November (fingers crossed of course)I wanted one for my IOM count and they are very unusual here.

I did a bit of product improvement just to check if the EBC button was still functioning with some reasonable photos.

A solitary Whooper was grazing nearby no doubt fueling up for the flight home to Iceland.

 

Some Widgeon won't be around much longer too.

 

And the Shoveller pair were still around. It would be good if they stayed to breed.

 

Then a Moorhen photobombed the scene as if to remind me I still had to count this. Again I will see a fair number later but I may as well get it out of the way now. so.

61. Common Moorhen. Glascoe Dubh.

 

Finally another duck swam into frame that looked different from female Widgeon or Teal.

I have a feeling this is the other half of the missing Pintail.

What does the team think.

Here is what I am using as a guide.

Not counted. Yet.

 

 

[PeterHG]

With the grey bill it certainly looks like a female Pintail.

[TonyQ]

I vote for a Pintail

[Galana]

Thank you @PeterHGand @TonyQ.

Whilst as I said I am 99.9% certain of Northern Pintail in November in Scotland (thus)

I would like to score this one for IOM too where it is very rarely encountered. I think it is only the second time I have seen one here.

So not wishing to count my chickens before they hatch I will count this as #62 and may as well make the Common Gull shown earlier #63 to get it on the IOM list too although again I will see them on MULL and the Hebrides later..

After all....

[Galana]

Well all good things come to an end and that includes my run of acceptable photos. I wandered off in my covid bubble to where I hope to find some Wheatear (Greenland race come first) but they may be stuck in Wales just now as I drew a blank.

Oh well.

Here are three new ticks to keep the score moving along.

I can do better and worse than this but I do have a reputation to live up to...

64. Northern Gannet. Off Point of Ayre. Soon they will be fishing outside my lounge window but may as well snap one.

 

Then on the Wheatear 'grounds' I grabbed this LBJ despite it being quite shy in long grass.

 

Note how skilfully I stuck some grass stems in the photo to create a nice frame?

65. Skylark. Smeale Ayres.

 

And now apologies for this chap.

 

66. Common Stonechat. Smeale Ayres. I don't know what went wrong but I think the cold wind numbed my finger and I did not press the EBC button and whilst trying forgot to put some Briar in the way as well.

I see  I must have hit the date stamp thingy instead. It's bad enough switching off face recognition and all the other gizmos somebody thinks is indispensable to experts like what I am.

[Galana]

Today started bright so again I tried for a Diver off the north coast but it was very rough in a bitter wind and they stayed well out of camera range.

However when checking my record I note that I never counted a bird seen here earlier even when I got a nicer one only last week.

So here is that Cormorant again.

067. Cormorant. Farmers pond, Cranstal.

 

And to counter that quality I offer a couple of shots to show I can get an EBC on demand quite naturally.

68. Common Guillimot. Ballaghennie beach. Hard to see even when surfaced but a chap has standards..

[Galana]

Earlier this week a Tortoise and a Hare had discourse on photographs of twigs. Some form of new ST game perhaps subtitled -"Twigs. Which Is This?" T.W.I.T.s

So during a sunny spell this afternoon I thought to contribute to the debate and offer these for consideration in a quiet time while the experts @Dave Williams& his associate @xelasare busy watching football.

Do any qualify I wonder? I really like the little mossy bits on #4.

 

I thought to get birds to perch on them but felt it would detract from the artistic quality of the image and confuse.

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by Galana
Spelling

[Dave Williams]

As one Owl said to the other TWITS? To WHO? Our team isn't playing tonight is it Alex, who cares about the international results!!

[Galana]

Whilst out yesterday looking for Twigs I did manage to squeeze off a few shots for my BY despite several 'regulars' still not putting in an appearance yet.

I did have a flyby from a distant Falcon.

 

69. Common Kestrel.  Ballakesh Plantation. IOM.

[Galana]

Well the thermometer has twitched a nice amount and the sunshine tempted me out for my daily exercise plus a little shopping for fresh fish.

By chance on the way home I thought to check out some local cliffs to see if any Auks had started to lay.

Answer 'no.' Oh well it is early yet and I did get a bonus.

Whilst scanning for Fulmars I tracked in on a very dark Fulmar and when it perched I had a nice surprise.

and when she moved into the cliff I had an even better one..

which I have cropped out for legal reasons.

70. Peregrine Falcon. A rock in the Irish Sea on the road from the Fish Shop..

 

 

[Galana]

Later I thought to see if the southern wind had persuaded those WheatEars seen by @Dave Williams in Llandudno last week to make the crossing.

First as couple of EBc of Fulmars. A bit noisy as the wind was still fresh even from the south.

71. Northern Fulmar. Ramsey. IOM.