Turnstones

I photographed these Turnstones on the coastal defences at Wallasey over the high tide. It's nice to have such enigmatic waders close to home. Some of the birds were still in summer-plumage which is always nice to see.

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Whimbrel

Short-eared Owl

Caspian Tern

I finally caught up with this monster tern that has been commuting between Cheshire and Staffordshire for the last few days. My only other British sighting of Caspian Tern was in 1992 at Neumann's Flash in Cheshire; who would have thought that the Northwest of England was a good place to see the world's largest species of tern?

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Whimbrel

Azores Bullfinch

Sunny Summer Days

In total contrast to the last few years, this July has been one of the warmest and driest in living memory.
I have been making the most of the sunshine and have been out and about with my camera and have also walked up Mount Snowdon twice! Here are a few recent shots. Get out there and enjoy the weather!

Dark Green Fritillary near Ruthin, North Wales.

Male Common Redstart, Ynys-hir RSPB.

Large Red Damselfly, Ynys-hir.

Fledgling Robin, foot of Snowdon, taken with compact camera.

At the start of Crib Goch ridge, Snowdonia.

Common Pheasant, Ynys-hir.

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Butterflies and Dragonflies

Ynys-hir

Azores Bullfinch

The Azores Bullfinch, or Priolo, is endemic to the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores. It was once quite widespread until a few decades ago when farmers started shooting them because of crop damage. This beautiful finch is now only found in the eastern part of the island, mainly on wooded hillsides around Pico de Vara. A chance meeting with one of the whale spotters (vigias) near Ponta Delgada, led us to explore a different site that was not as far to drive and we were amazed to find over a dozen Bullfinches feeding in a field. I was thrilled to see such a rare bird and was quite content to enjoy pleasant but, from a photographer's viewpoint, distant views. That was until one bird flew from the field and landed in a bush quite close to our car from which I was able to obtain an acceptable photograph.

Both sexes of the Azores Bullfinch resemble
the female Eurasian Bullfinch.

Madeiran Wall Lizards are common on the rocks around
the harbour in Ponta Delagda.

This Loggerhead Turtle was seen on a whale-watching trip.

 

Common Buzzard.

Azorean Yellow-legged Gull - because of the abundant fish scraps
in the harbour at Ponta Delagada these gulls flatly refused to come
to bread!

Azorean race of Chaffinch.

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Spotted Dolphins in the Azores

Wildlife of the Azores

Whimbrel

I've been very busy in and out of work so I haven't had time to edit all my photos from my last trip to the Azores. But here are a few shots of a lovely Whimbrel that was on a rocky shore near Ponta Delagada. The light wasn't brilliant but the bird showed well and was seen to eat a few small crabs. During my stay on the island of Sao Miguel the weather was generally overcast and occasionally drizzly, while the weather here in Britain was sunny and warm. Surprisingly, a friend of mine was birding in Norway at the same time and the temperature was over 30 degrees Celsius north of the Arctic Circle!

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Iceland - Whales

Marsh Tits at Leighton Moss

Spring Wheatears

Wheatears are one of the first Spring migrants to appear back in the country, usually sometime in March, but they continue to arrive well into May. These beautiful chats are always a welcome sight whenever they appear, but the first sighting is often of a white rump disappearing over a grassy tussock or sand dune as the birds fly away. Their name is reportedly a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon "white-arse", a totally appropriate epithet. While searching for Dotterel on Anglesey last month I managed to photograph a few of these beauties along with another common migrant, a Swallow perched on a wire by a small farm.

Male Wheatears are very smart-looking birds.

Female Wheatears have a more subtle plumage.

This Swallow was observed preening
outside a farm building.

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Wheatears

Norfolk in October

Sperm Whale

"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me." So wrote Herman Melville in the opening chapter of Moby Dick.
I too feel the need to spend time by the coast or on the sea in search of seabirds and especially cetaceans. The naturalist and writer Mark Carwardine speaks of his need for a regular whale or dolphin "fix", and these animals, unlike any other, act like a drug on the minds of many people; once addicted there is no cure. The pleasure in seeing a distant blow as a whale surfaces, or the joy felt seeing dolphins at close quarters surfing the wake of boats or riding the bow-wave is unlike any other wildlife experience.
So for my fix this year I returned to the beautiful Azorean island of Sao Miguel, to search for whales and dolphins. I undertook five trips with the experienced Futurismo team, who virtually guarantee cetacean sightings. On my trip here last summer I was unfortunate not to see any species of whale, so I was more than pleased when one of my trips on the catamaran Cetus, produced sightings of a regular Sperm Whale know as "Mr Liable" for his reliability in showing up in the waters near the capital Ponta Delagada.

A 45 degree bushy blow is a good indication that you have spotted
a Sperm Whale.

Sperm Whales dive deeply in search of prey such as squid
and as such show their tail flukes when diving.

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Azores Spotted Dolphins

Azores Common Dolphins

Whitethroat

It's been a busy month for me at work (they've imposed a holiday ban for the next two months which is not conducive to finding and photographing Spring migrants!) and I've also done a fair bit of running.
On the May Bank Holiday I spent a windy day on Anglesey fruitlessly searching for a trip of Dotterel. Compensation was had by photographing migrant Wheatears. The afternoon was spent as South Stack RSPB but there were still no auks on the cliffs, but a Harbour Porpoise was feeding just off the stack.
The previous Saturday I spent the morning in North Wales where I had fabulous views of thirteen lecking Black Grouse, along with Whinchat and Whitethroat. I had planned to try and photograph more warblers this Spring, but the unseasonably cool weather and lack of time off have put paid to that mini project. I did photograph a Whitethroat at Inner Marsh Farm RSPB on the 20th of April. I had been visiting the site to see a male Blue-winged Teal which was far too distant for even record shots.
On the 11th of May I completed the 33 miles Sandstone Trail challenge in Cheshire in very changeable weather conditions including rain and hail. I did see my first Cuckoo of the year though, and views ranging from the Shropshire hills, Welsh hills and Jodrell Bank made it a very enjoyable day.
The next day, despite some complaints from my leg muscles I ran the Chester Half Marathon in a time of 84 minutes!

Whitethroat at Inner Marsh Farm

Meadow Pipit in the rain, North Wales

Whitethroat, North Wales

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Marsh Tits at Leighton Moss

Short-eared Owl