PeterHG's seventh Big Year

[PeterHG]

209 /NL 119. Carrion Crow. Arkemheen, July. Not the most desirable species to photograph, but the BY needs one. At least in the evening light the blacks yield some detail. 

 

 

210 /NL 120. Common Kestrel. Arkemheen, July. It used to be our most common bird-of-prey, but intensive agriculture and the lack of biodiversity have caused the numbers to fall drasically. It is still not rare, fortunately, but things need to change for the Kestrel to recover. It is now on the red list.

 

[xelas]

Excellent photos, Peter, with both lenses. Zvezda is a big fan of a zoom type lenses. Now you will have a crazy reach: 400 x 2 x 1.4 = 1120 mm!  Looking forward to see your South African birds.

Edited July 27, 2022 by xelas

[PeterHG]

On 7/27/2022 at 3:47 PM, xelas said:

Now you will have a crazy reach: 400 x 2 x 1.4 = 1120 mm

We’ll, theoretically that is correct. Attaching a 1.4 converter to this zoom lens, however, takes away rather too much of the image quality, I fear. But I am confident enough in the performance of the bare lens to take it with me to South-Africa and 800mm is a lot of reach.

[xelas]

21 hours ago, PeterHG said:

800mm is a lot of reach

Don't forget bringing a sturdy support, like a bag full of rice (also useful if the camp store is closed) . Where in South Africa?

[PeterHG]

2 hours ago, xelas said:

Where in South Africa?

Almost exclusively in the Kruger park. My sister and brother-in-law will come with us. They are not birders, but do enjoy the added attraction of seeing the SA birds, so I hope to see and photograph a fair number over there. And yes, I will pack the bean/rice bag.

[PeterHG]

A quiet time, but I managed a few more additions from our wetland area.

 

211 /NL 121 Common Snipe. Arkemheen, August

 

 

212/NL 122. Pied Avocet. Arkemheen, August.

 

 

This morning I took a walk in a less-visited meadow area. To my surprise I founf 4 cattle egrets there, still a rare species over here, though the number of sightings is increasing. Here are three. The fourth one was foraging a little furher away. I already saw them in Portugal earlier this year.

 

 

When I was leaving the area I saw one of the ditches was being dredged. This apparently brought a lot of fish to the surface, which attracted a lot of herons. And they were not the only ones, there were also Great and Little Egrets (not usually seen here), a pair of White Storks and lots of gulls. As it was impossible to get all (or even most)herons in focus I went for a stacked image. The camera then takes 8 shots at different focal lengths and stitches them together into one image. The technique is often used in macro photos. It is less suitable for birds as there should not be any movement during the time the camera takes the consecutive shots. In this photo you can see that some of the gulls did move, causing double birds. Still I thought it worth a try and I did get the whole row of anglers in focus . Unfortunately I had already counted all of the species in the photo...

 

 

 

 

 

[michael-ibk]

Wow, that´s quite a fishing party, great sighting. Never tried stacking, interesting. Cattle Egrets bred here in Austria this year for the very first time, they certainly are expanding more and more.

[lmSA84]

Cool picture!

[PeterHG]

As it's EBC month I'll add a few. I was happy to find both, even when the photo opportunities weren't great. I went north to the Lauwersmeer area. This is usually a goofd place to visit during migration, but the drought had taken away much of the water. Even so, we had a few nice sightings. At least the scope views were excellent.

 

213 /NL 123. Merlin. Lauwersmeer, September.

A heavy crop. This was the view at 400mm:

 

214 /NL 124. Caspian Tern. Lauwersmeer, September

 

 

 

[Kitsafari]

Oh please. EBCs are just impossible for you. 

[TonyQ]

I have never seen a Merlin so I would be happy with that view!

[PeterHG]

On 9/24/2022 at 9:48 AM, Kitsafari said:

EBCs are just impossible for you. 

I have to prove you wrong there one of these days, though I must admit I was a bit presumptuous labelling them as EBC's. The second one certainly wasn't and the first one was still nowhere near the prime examples shown here before.

On 9/24/2022 at 9:08 PM, TonyQ said:

I have never seen a Merlin so I would be happy with that view!

Yes, the sighting itself is special indeed and I hope you'll get to see one soon!

[michael-ibk]

Merlin for me too please! Never got even close to getting a photo!

[PeterHG]

Last Saturday I had booked a pelagic trip departing from the province of Zeeland. I'd never done that in our country before, so I was curious to see what it would produce. The weather forecast was rain all day, but as soon as we set out to sea the rain stopped and did not bother us again. I had hoped for a lightly better score in species, perhaps some shearwaters or a petrel, but that wasn't to be. Still it was a nice day and I did manage to get a few year firsts and some nice photos.

 

215 /NL 125 Lesser Black-backed Gull. North Sea, October. Perhaps the most numerous gull of the trip.

 

216 /NL 126 Little Gull. North Sea, October. We saw them a few times at the edge of the group of the much larger gulls and they mostly kept their distance. This one gave me some photo opportunities, Fortunately.

 

217 /NL 127. Sandwich Tern. North Sea, October. The avian flu decimated some of the larger colonies in our country, so I had not even seen a single one this year. I do hope they'll recover in the years to come. We only saw wto or three on the trip, so I was quite happy to get a shot of one of them.

 

 

218 /NL 128. Arctic Skua. North Sea, October. The only skua species we saw on the trip but we did see 5 individuals. It is quite fascinating to see them chasing gulls in order to make them drop or even regurgitate their precious food. Quite a few fellow-birders also regurgitated their meals, but unfortunately they failed to lure in the skuas for a closer shot. I did appreciate their attempts, though...;)

 

 

 

A bit of an overload for the skuas, but I love this photo. Sometimes distance works in your favour.

 

Also we saw two Gannets (already seen in Portugal), one juvenile and one 3rd year subadult. Always a joy to see them.

 

 

 

We also got sightings of Razorbill and  Red-Throated Diver. The first disappeared in the bobbing waves all the time, so a photo prooved impossible, but I did get a distant fly-by of the second (already counted).

[michael-ibk]

Great PIFs! And agree, that Skua photo in the waves is special. Oh my about the regurgitating photographers though, you obviously have a strong stomach, I´m afraid I would have joined in had I seen that around me.

[Galana]

A worthwhile trip. I liked the Bonxie on the seascape. Quite striking.

Worried about your captains navigation though. I thought Zeeland was in the same calendar as the rest of Europe.

[Kitsafari]

i like that skua framed against the waves too but seeing those waves, i would have been one of those regurgitating in vain

[PeterHG]

6 hours ago, Galana said:

I thought Zeeland was in the same calendar as the rest of Europe

I presume you are referring to the use of ‘pelagic’. Just put that down to my ignorance of the true meaning of the word or ( perhaps preferable) poetic freedom

[TonyQ]

@PeterHGgood photos from the boat - very difficult to do.

I thought pelagic just meant the sea away from the land, I didn’t know there was a different meaning

[PeterHG]

Thank you @michael-ibk @Kitsafari@Galana@TonyQ!

 

15 hours ago, michael-ibk said:

I´m afraid I would have joined in

 

9 hours ago, Kitsafari said:

i would have been one of those regurgitating in vain

It's certainly no fun for those affected. My own birding friend, who accompanied me on the trip suffered for a few hours, but fortunately her recoverd somewhat and was still able to enjoy the trip.

 

10 hours ago, Galana said:

I liked the Bonxie on the seascape

Do you feel that it's a Bonxie? That is only the name for the Great Skua, I thought? I put it down to an Arctic Skua, mainly because of the extended tail feathers still visible (although not too clearly), but I you think differently I' be glad to hear that. I dare say you must have seen more skuas than I have....

21 minutes ago, TonyQ said:

I thought pelagic just meant the sea away from the land

That's what I though, but I'm never too old to learn. Well, perhaps some day I will be....;)

 

[Galana]

13 hours ago, Galana said:

I thought Zeeland was in the same calendar.

Perhaps I was too subtle? Your photographs are either for Big Year 2021 or are not due until next month.

[PeterHG]

2 hours ago, Galana said:

are either for Big Year 2021 or are not due until next month

 Ah, of course! The weather has changed so much here, that I presumed it must be October...

[lmSA84]

@PeterHG- Put me down as another who loves that shot of Skua against the waves.

 

I recently did my first pelagic trip and I have a new found appreciation for how hard bird photography is on a boat!     

[Dave Williams]

On 9/30/2022 at 10:45 AM, lmSA84 said:

@PeterHG- Put me down as another who loves that shot of Skua against the waves.

 

I recently did my first pelagic trip and I have a new found appreciation for how hard bird photography is on a boat!     

 

Me too, amazing shots considering the swell. 

 

[PeterHG]

After the breeding season the protected wetland and meadow area nearby has been frequented by three White-tailed Eagles, two adults and one subadult. They keep their distance, but one most days you can get good scope views of one, or even all three. They can sit on the wooden fences for long periods of time, but when they do take to the air, they create panic among the geese, lapwings and wigeons. Always a spectacular sight. Already counted.

 

 

 

I did get a new one for the count that same day, although equally distant.

 219 /NL 129. Peregrine. Arkemheen, October.

 

 

The third raptor was much more confiding, but already counted. Most times when a buzzard is perched on a fence, it takes off the moment you stop the car, but somehow I must have looked less threatening this time.

 

 

Today I took a short walk, hoping to catch up on some woodland birds (I haven't even photographed Coal Tit or Blue Tit...), but the only addition I managed to grab was a nuthatch. Well, one more, anyway and the walk was very nice.

 

220 /NL 130. Eurasian Nuthatch. Leusden, October

 

 

Unless I stumble upon something unexpected in the next few days, this will be my last addition from the home turf for now. We are leaving for South Africa next Monday, where we'll do a south to north tour of the Kruger NP. Four weeks in total, so taking it easy. We're very much looking foreward to this after having postponed the trip 8 months ago. Unfortunately the number of Covid cases is on the rise again, but I don't think it will interfere with our travel plans this time. We are travelling with four, my sister and brother-in-law are coming with us. We have booked seven restcamps: Berg-en-Dal, Skukuza, Satara, Letaba, Mopani, Shingwedzi and Punda Maria. At the end of our trip we'll have a full day in Pretoria, close to the airport. Perhaps I'll try and do a day trip to Rietvlei from there as this could yield some different birds. I quite liked the place when I was there a few years ago, though now the visit will be on a Sunday, so it will be a lot busier. We'll see.