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Let's talk Great British Birds and from around the world - upload your photos.


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Game Warden
Posted

Let's have a festival of birding images from in and around the UK: who can start us off?

 

(Note, and all your birds from around the world other than Africa...)

Posted (edited)

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Atlantic Puffin, in Scotland also known as Tammy Norie.
Image taken on the Isle of May, Firth of Forth, Scotland.


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How can Puffins catch a large number of small fish without dropping the ones already caught?

Puffins have a semi-rigid raspy tongue and a barbed palate so that when a fish is caught it is pushed onto spikes on the hard palate by the tongue freeing the beak to snap at the next victim.

Edited by Rainbirder
Posted

Puffins are on my bucket list. BEAUTIFUL images!! (Great caption, too!)

Posted

Excellent start, Rainbirder.

 

Garden birds taken through the kitchen window without the benefit of a long lens pale into insignificance besides images like these so I'll just sit back and watch.

Posted

Me too!

Super LEEDS
Posted

We seem to always have great luck with robins on our jaunts. This one seemed to walk with us along a wall on our way up Walla Crag, just out of Keswick in the lovely Lake District.

 

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Posted (edited)

Nice Robin image SL.

JohnR & Wilddog it's true that a close-up headshot is difficult without a big telephoto lens but it is still easy to get good seabird images with a 200-300 mm lens. The UK has some of the most accessible and yet spectacular seabird colonies in the World yet many folk who travel widely in search of wildlife thrills have never been to a UK seabird colony. Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, Skomer off the Welsh coast and the Farne Isles off the Northumbrian coast are all readily accessible. Scotland has numerous colonies - a few on the mainland but most on the isles.

My own seabird local is the Isle of May on the east coast of central Scotland. There are daily sailings from Anstruther (70 mins drive from Edinburgh) which give about three hours on the island. Close views of Puffins, Razorbills and Guillemots (Murres) are guaranteed while the large Gannet colony on the Bass Rock is nearby. Given the cheap international flights between many European countries and Edinburgh it is possible for those in France, Germany, Belgium and the Nederlands to have a weekend seabird fest without breaking the bank .........and good images are almost guaranteed. The same applies to the Farne Islands which are less than two hours drive from Edinburgh (which additionally have excellent tern colonies including Common,Arctic and Sandwich Terns with a small colony of the rare Roseate Tern on nearby Coquet Island (boats sail around this island but there is no landing).


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Bridled form of Common Guillemot


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Eurasian Shag headshot
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Razorbill headshot
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Kittiwake headshot



Take a British Seabird Safari this Spring -you won't regret it!

Edited by Rainbirder
Game Warden
Posted

We had a lovely walk recently along the Cuckmere Haven in the Seven Sisters Park recently, wishing I'd had a good camera and lens as there was some great sightings. (Not being a birder, not sure what they all were, but really enjoyed seeing the variety). A good list is here. I did see plenty of Skylarks, those I knew, the herons and egrets, and there were protected areas for the nesting Common Redshank. And a lovely landscape. Rainbirder, I love your parting comment in your post above.

Posted

JohnR & Wilddog it's true that a close-up headshot is difficult without a big telephoto lens but it is still easy to get good seabird images with a 200-300 mm lens. The UK has some of the most accessible and yet spectacular seabird colonies in the World yet many folk who travel widely in search of wildlife thrills have never been to a UK seabird colony.

 

I don't doubt you're right, and if I were more of a birder I might try. But it is your photography I'm a fan of not the birds.

 

I live only a few minutes away from Meriden which claims to be the furthest point from the sea in England. As I don't drive getting anywhere in the UK with public transport is as much of a marathon for me as getting to a farm in Namibia and the latter has the greater allure.

Posted

A juvenile seen from the kitchen sink

 

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Posted

A heron seen in my local park.

 

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Posted

Nice image of this reprobate heron!!!

Game Warden
Posted

Nice timing JohnR.

Posted (edited)

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I could watch these birds for hours!

Loch of Kinnordy is a feeding loch for local Ospreys and on a good day when the waters are still they are queuing up. Pike are the main prey at this loch.

Edited by Rainbirder
Game Warden
Posted

Has anyone seen or heard a cuckoo yet?

Guest nappa
Posted

Four of the the five tracked cuckoos are heading this way, one is missing believed dead, one is still in Africa, one in Italy & one in Spain the other is still active but with no position information.

 

We usually hear our first cuckoo here in Kent around the 20th, last year it was late, 27th, 23rd in 2010.

 

BTO Cockoo tracking

 

Game Warden
Posted

The sound of spring for me. A blackbird's song is something really beautiful...

 

(Note, not my video.)

Posted

Another kitchen sink photo of a real cutie (a bit grainy).

 

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Game Warden
Posted

"Who you looking at punk?"

 

Keep hearing a cuckoo in the woods behind my house. Seems like s/he prefers the Portuguese climate to that of the UK...

  • 3 weeks later...
Rainbirder
Posted (edited)

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Eurasian Treecreeper.
This guy is a frequent visitor to our garden. He is attracted using melted beef fat which I pour down the bark of selected tree trunks - it quickly solidifies and seems to be a real draw for treecreepers.

Edited by Rainbirder
Game Warden
Posted

Wow, I wonder if they come into our garden here? Will have to get the binos out...

Game Warden
Posted

Interactive Dawn Chorus...

 

Which birds sing first in the dawn chorus? - interactive reports www.guardian.co.uk.

 

Why do bird species sing in a particular order as the sun rises? The Wildlife Trusts and the Royal Horticultural Society, which run the Big Wildlife Garden competition, explain what you might hear and when. Click on the pictures below to find out.

To read the full article, (and play with the pics and sounds), click here.

 

It's such a fantastic little app.

Game Warden
Posted

Turtle doves: RSPB launches rescue mission reports www.bbc.co.uk.

 

Conservationists are embarking on an urgent mission to save one of the UK's most threatened birds - the turtle dove - from extinction.

To read the full article click here.

Game Warden
Posted
Blackbird cam, and others can be found on the www.wildlifewhisperer.tv website.
Posted

My first fledgling of 2012 (starling) on my bird table, shot from my kitchen window.

 

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