A Piece of the Action.

Well three pieces actually.

Long-eared Owl. Brian Rafferty.

Another one of those irresistible Brian Rafferty Long-eared Owl shots showing to perfection the action of this bird diving to ground at prey, whether or not the bird scored on this attempt I wouldn't know but these birds make plunges like this many times without success, a hard life when the table isn't set every time you're feeling hungry or have a family to feed. BR's website is HERE please take a look.  A brilliant image as ever Brian and many thanks.

Osprey. Gary Jones.

A long distance shot of the Osprey coming in to land at the nest site in the Lakes. Opportunities for this level of photographic success don't come very often but Gary took advantage of this location at Bassenthwaite where facilities are in place to view these magnificent birds. Gary's website is HERE and well worth a look to see his wildlife and wanderings on the mountains. Thanks for the pic Gary which helps to fill the gaps on Birds2blog between my birding day's.

 

House Martin. Stuart Piner.

This is as good a photograph of the House Martin in flight as I've seen in many a year. I'd hazard a guess the bird had just taken off having taken a bath as the water droplets appear to be flying left, right, and centre. A pretty cool pic Stuart and many thanks for letting me show it here on the blog.

I'd sooner be birding....but unfortunately won't be until Monday at the earliest.

Greet'ings.

Well today's totally unconnected pic of the Snipe is one of Brian Rafferty's who is certainly connected because he met up and accompanied me during the greater part of my 4.5 hours in the Cross of Greet/White Greet/Bloe Greet area today which ended with very mixed feelings in that 4.5 hours anywhere for me and not finding a particular species means its definitely not there. So,void of further comment no Stonechats seen here today, but an excellent record collected was the double figure of 10 Whinchat. Also of note here was a Cuckoo, the notable low count of just 7 Wheatear, at least 30 Meadow Pipit, 3 Raven, a Buzzard, only 2 Wren heard, single male Reed Bunting, and at least one adult Grey Wagtail was feeding two recently fledged young on the equally young River Hodder.

With the direct permission of the owner we were able to visit a private woodland later in the day where things were very quiet, but it's not really all that easy to make such a comment when a singing male Pied Flycatcher and male Redstart with another in song were seen, also 2 Treecreeper one of which was feeding young at a nest hole. I find it difficult to believe that - apart from a 'few white's' - I recorded just one butterfly in my entire seven hours today which was that of an Orange Tip.

And finally....

   

Well how's this for ending with a smart image of a smart bird. This is the 'Audubon's' Yellow-rumped Warbler thanks once again to Paul Baker in BC Canada.

And Stocks Reservoir does it again with a Temmink's Stint found there this evening to follow on closely from the Spotted Sandpiper earlier in the week.

The Quickie!

This is the shortest post ever on Birds2blog but may be added to later if time allows.

The image above along with....

....this one, are two of a set of photographs by Brian Rafferty and I'm not prepared to say more on them as I strongly recommend you visit Brian's website HERE  - or at the top of my sidebar where he belongs - to read about a memorable experience he had this week involving these brilliant Black Grouse.