Avocets crossing bills

Avocets crossing bills

Happy Wild Bird Wednesday :0)

Click the link below to see photographs from many talented folk around the world and feast your eyes on our fine feathered friends!!

A square format photograph of a pair of Avocets (Recurvirostra avosetta) at Elmley Marshes in Kent, England. Very similar in appearance to the American Avocet (Recurvirostra Americana), but lacking the apricot coloration. Delightful nonetheless. I had one of those moments which sometimes happens to wildlife photographers, when everything works in your favour and caught these two in perfect crossed beak symmetry. These beautiful birds are something of a rarity in England, officially Amber Status with 1,500 breeding pairs in the UK, confined largely to the East cost in Summer (where these were) and in the South West over winter. They are a huge success story and had been absent for many years until a few pairs arrived in East Anglia in the 1940s and began to breed. The importance of this successful breeding gave rise to the Avocet being used as the emblem of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (The RSPB).

Taken on the Canon 7D with my trusty canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 L lens

Black Headed Gull, Rye Harbour, Kent, England

Black Headed Gull Rye Harbour Kent

Happy Wild Bird Wednesday :0)

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I have barely been out with my camera for the last few months but have been looking through some of my archives. I stumbled across this one from my first proper day out just after I got my first DSLR in June 2012. Here we have a Black Headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) a small gull with amber status, but common on the Kent Coast in England, where I took this in Rye Harbour. I do like this shot (especially as it was on my first “proper” day out with a DSLR (!) and was surprised not to have shared it before. I love the bokeh backdrop of waves and breakers and the position of the wings in gliding/hovering mode and the angle of the head with the drop of water on the tip of the beak.

Taken with the wonderful Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens on my Canon 7D. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival, if the rumours are well founded, of the canon 7D mark ii. I appreciate there are advantages with Full frame DSLRs, but the extra reach afforded by cropped frame for wildlife is something I see as an advantage with a cropped frame (1.6X on the Canons). though some say cropping from a full frame is at least as good image quality wise. The 7D has served me well and I have shots which I am very proud of, but I have many buried on my hard drive never to see the light of day. My main gripes are the noise above 800 ISO and the focus which is a trifle hit and miss. Sometimes it deals with tricky shots perfectly but fails miserably on static objects!!

There are more rumours about a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM mark ii. To be honest, I think I have not been good enough for Santa to get me both for Christmas, but a second body would be rather wonderful :0)

Wandering Whistling Ducks (Wild Bird Wednesday)

Wandering Whistling Ducks

Happy Wild Bird Wednesday :0)

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Here we have an Australian trio of charmingly named Wandering Whistling Duck (Dendrocygna arcuata) performing some synchronised swimming. An understated but utter delightful species of waterfowl in my eyes :0)

Delicate Spring Apple blossom

Beautiful Spring Apple Blossom in my garden in Sissinghurst, Kent England

On the Apple tree in my Garden in Sissinghurst Kent, UK. The tree was smothered with these beautiful blossoms last spring and a beautiful white climbing rose scrabbled through producing the most wonderful sight. Nine months on and a good crop of apples has come and gone and I can’t wait for these gorgeous flowers to emerge again this Spring!

The Awesome Australian Eastern Osprey (Wild Bird Wednesday)

Eastern Osprey (Pandion cristatus) on Low Isle Queensland, Australia

Happy Wild Bird Wednesday :0)

Click the link below to see photographs from many talented folk around the world and feast your eyes on our fine feathered friends!!

I took this photo on the Low Isle off the Coast of Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia, this is the powerful and beautiful Eastern Osprey (Pandion cristatus) in the process of launching himself off a Casuarina tree.

Check out the talons on this beauty!! This is why they are brutally efficient fish catchers.

I cannot tell you just how much I enjoyed seeing this majestic bird!

Click here for more of my bird photographs – enjoy!!

Rainbow Bee Eater, Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia (Wild Bird Wednesday)

Rainbow Bee Eater in Port Douglas. Beauty on Chains

Happy Wild Bird Wednesday :0)

Click the link below to see photographs from many talented folk around the world and feast your eyes on our fine feathered friends!!

This Wednesday is rather special: Stewart, who spearheads the weekly Bird photography blog exchanges and links which make Wild Bird Wednesday (WBW) such a valuable source of photographs and web links is today hosting his 100th WBW!! He has selected 15 of his favourite WBW photographs and posted to his blog. They really are spectacular, so do click the link below and enjoy them. Links to this weeks participating Blogs (around 70 )from around the world can be found on his page, so do drop in and enjoy the weekly event which is WBW :0)

Today is my third WBW blog posting, so a long way to go to catch up with Stewart’s landmark figure and after last weeks British bird, I have chosen to return to an Australian bird, the spectacular Rainbow Bee Eater (Merops ornatus)

You will never forget your first encounter with this beautiful bird and the brightly coloured feathers have an almost metallic sheen to them.
I took this shot in a Park near the Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia.

I have a number of shots of these birds on branches and plants, but there is something about the mix of the modern steel chain with the stunningly beautiful colourful bird which makes this one that bit unusual and a personal favourite!

The bokeh background is provided by a Paperbark tree (Melaleuca spp), a stunning tree, superficially resembling a Eucalyptus, but unrelated, with a soft bark often hanging off in huge multilayered sheets – hence the name.

Click here for more of my bird photographs – enjoy!!

The Northern Plover or Peewit (Wild Bird Wednesday)

The Northern Plover, Green Lapwing or Peewit, a striking British bird

Happy Wild Bird Wednesday :0)

Click the link below to see photographs from many talented folk around the world and feast your eyes on our fine feathered friends!!

My Wild Bird Wednesday photograph from last week was the Australian Masked Plover. A great nature photographer whose blog I follow ( All downhill from here ) comes from England and now lives in Hong Kong was talking about the “Peewits he used to see in Hampshire, so this ones for you Andrew :0)

Here we have a charming and beautiful British bird, known variously as the Northern Plover, Green Lapwing and the Peewit, after the sound of its call. It goes by the scientific name of Vanellus vanellus. It was a common sight while I was growing up in Hampshire in England, but recent years have not been kind to it and due to loss of breeding grounds and changes in farming methods, its numbers have dropped dramatically and it is now on the Red List as threatened. I had not seen one for years, but on a recent visit to Elmley Marshes near my home in Kent, I came across a thriving population. A wonderful sight they were and a delight to hear their calling and their fast and erratic flight. I tried some flight shots but they resulted in what my Son would call “an epic fail”. They are crazy fast, but the main difficult is that they veer and change direction like no other bird I have seen. A challenge for another day I feel :0). Very similar in build, shape and and size to Plovers the world over and if you have seen my recent shot of the Australian Masked Plover, you can see a more than superficial resemblance

More of my bird photography here

The curious looking Australian Masked Plover (Wild Bird Wednesday)

Australian Bird the Masked Plover

Happy Wild Bird Wednesday :0)

Click the link below to see photographs from many talented folk around the world and feast your eyes on our fine feathered friends!!

A curious looking bird they are indeed. Australia has some truly beautiful birds, but this is not one of them! It does has its own appeal and I personally find them rather charming in appearance.
I would like to introduce you to the Masked Plover, AKA the Masked Lapwing (Vanellus miles) taken near the beach front in Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

The mask is rather leathery and very distinctive – they are not pretty but rather fascinating in a sinister way. They are similar in appearance to Plovers or Lapwings the world over and share the behaviour of many when it comes to protecting their young, diving on predators far larger than themselves and feigning a broken wing to lure enemies away from their nests, in the same way as the Killdeer, a American Plover

Jabiru (Wild Bird Wednesday)

Happy Wild Bird Wednesday :0)

Click the link below to see photographs from many talented folk around the world and feast your eyes on our fine feathered friends!!

My offering for WBW is another unconventionally beautiful Australian bird, the Black-necked Stork (Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus), also known locally as the Jabiru (not actually the correct name, as a rather different to the real Jabiru from the Americas). An imposing bird up to 5 feet tall and another Australian bird with the most stunning iridescence if viewed in the right light. A water bird and a carnivore, it feeds on other small water and crustaceans and amphibians. A delightful bird you will certainly not forget meeting!

Click here to see more of my Bird photography!!

Beautiful black swans in flight

Beautiful Black Swans in flight

A shot from my Son’s”best day ever”!

We took a boat trip around the lake at the Mareeba Wetlands, Queensland , Australia, and there were several black swans (Cygnus atratus) gracefully paddling as swans do. I had assumed that all their plumage was pure black and only when these 2 appeared in flight did I see that the front third or so of the wings are pure white, which disappears entirely the moment they touch down.

the background shows a shallow fringe of reeds, Eucalyptus trees and the lighter patches are huge termite mounds

Taken from the boat with the Canon 7D and my favourite Wildlife lens, the Canon 100-400 mm F/4.5-5.6 EF L IS USM Lens

As for me, it has to be one of my best days ever too :0)

PS it is Harvey’s 12th Birthday today, so this ones for him 🙂