the last post of the year

spent 8 hours watching a field of slurry and about 5000 big gulls - one adult Med and a first-winter Iceland to show for the efforts so a gull filled sunset to end the year and a promise not to go there tomorrow!

first-wniter Iceland Gull

in the muckiest field there is even a beautiful bird like this one starts to look a bit less white then it should be

Long-tailed Duck fest continues

went for a walk with the wife and monty this morning and located the 3 Long-tailed Ducks on the patch, male Marsh Harrier but not much else; after a wasted visit to Far Ings the light was so beautiful I went back to the ducks but on the way saw one on another pond -- took some photos and then went to check the other 3 were still there and they were so now 4 in total; 3 Cetti's called and a Peregrine harassed the feral pigs and 2 Kingfishers chased past -- not a bad day -- these shots benefit from light and location things that you just cannot predict with so many wild birds -- the IQ with the Canon 5D3 is superb if you get close enough for a decent image size; all on monopod crouched in the goo!

feeding Parrot Crossbill

a bit of S95 video taken last weekend

Two-barred Crossbills

continuing the December loxia theme headed back to the Two-barred Crossbills in S Yorks, first seen in October 2013; in some situations simply impossible to get a correctly exposed image with the birds in deep shade but the white sky behind; at other times high overhead and always seemingly in shade in spite of sun shining around and about -- very very difficult to get anything on these so a lot of low quality images but a very rare species so I like to have records --
all images Canon 5D3, Canon 500f4 II and Canon 2x III all hand held at 2000ISO