A Few from Spring

With it being foggy and murky grey outside all day, it was a good time to catch up with a bit of the photo processing backlog. So I turned my thoughts back to Spring which is such a contrast to the view out of the window today. Early mornings filled with bird song, migrants arriving in waves, the birds looking bright and immaculate and the freshness of the new growth bursting forth from the plants. Such a vibrant time of year and always a pleasure to be out at first light and soaking it all in.

So for this post I just thought I would take a few of the bird images from last Spring and put them together. What could say Spring more than a bird on some willow catkins. In this case a colourful Goldfinch.

Living by the coast there is a reasonable number of gorse bushes and normally good flocks of Linnet. I always associated one with the other as the males often use the top of these vibrant yellow flowered bushes to advertise their territory in song.

A bird that is particularly noticeable in the Spring is the Meadow Pipit.  Huge numbers migrate and on certain days it seems they are everywhere. Of course these are a favoured 'victim' of cuckoos who time their migration to arrive when other birds are beginning to lay eggs.  

Many birds look at their best at this time of year as the males feathers finally wear into their fresh breeding plumage. This male Reed Bunting is nearly there with just a few tawny coloured feather ends to change before the transformation is complete. 

One of the earliest migrant arrivals is the Northern Wheatear with the birds typically arriving locally from their long flight up from Africa around mid-March. They bring with them a real injection of striking colour and contrast into what is still a generally drab landscape in the early Spring with the remnants of winter still evident. Often these arriving birds are very flighty and have an annoying habitat of tending to stay just out of camera range, displaying a flash of white rump as they keep their distance ahead of you.

Into April and migration is in full swing with the arrival of warblers and Whinchat. These birds look amazing when they arrive although the orange colours of the breast and flanks seems to quickly fade once they have been here a short while. From a photography point of view they are definitely a bird to try and catch as they arrive.

 Of course Spring is not just about sights, it is also about sounds. Unfortunately I did not get much time to photograph warblers this year with the exception of the Willow Warbler. This bird's song of descending notes I know very well, having had one singing all through the 'night' outside my bedroom when I stayed in Arctic Norway. The songster did not help with me struggling to get to sleep with the perpetual daylight outside.

Well having done this post and reminisced over Spring the grey murk outside suddenly looks a bit brighter. Also it has got me thinking that I should start thinking about and planning my trip abroad for next year. North, South, East or West...decisions...decisions.

Time for a Few Birds

I have been having a lot of fun photographing brown hares this spring and started feeling I had been neglecting the birds a little. This was particularly the case as I could feel spring gathering around me with various migrants coming through and arriving locally. So it was time for a bit of bird time. Also I wanted to get in a little bird practice as I am away to Romania in three weeks where the majority of subjects will be birds. This post is a small collection of different birds photographed recently from a series of often short sessions in various places.

Starting of with a trip down south recently to visit my parents which resulted in a brief stop-off in Bushy Park to break up the journey. The avian soundscape of the London Parks has been transformed by a flourishing population of Ring-necked Parakeets, with their constant sqwarking from the trees. Their vivid green colours certainly add a splash of the exotic to these park lands. This is a species of considerable debate given the suggested competition between these introduced invading species and our endemic tree nesting birds. The light was not great on the day so I was looking for birds in places where I could avoid the sky which either meant low down or with a tree trunk filling the frame.

On one of the ponds in the park there were three Pochard. This is a duck species that has frustratingly evaded by efforts to photograph it and as on this occasion I have only managed a few photographs. This pair of Pochard where in the middle of mating with the female getting half 'drowned' in the process.

Moving closer to home, I have undertaken the occasional early morning or evening session before or after work. My good friend Gerhard created, with quite a lot of sustained effort, an 'out in the wild' feeding station for Linnet. These are quite a flighty species and so it provided a good opportunity to get some photos and watch the birds up close.  His efforts paid off attracting increasing numbers of the birds, which were mainly young birds or females but there were a couple of better coloured males amongst them. They tend to be a slightly overlooked species  which most will associate with loose bounding twittering flocks, but a good coloured male up close is a fine looking bird.

It was nice to see good numbers of Skylark along the local coastal strip. There liquid song dripping down from their high display flights is always a pleasure to the ears.

Always a tricky subject in flight.

This next photograph was a completely unplanned bonus as the bird landed next to me in a bramble patch whilst trying to photograph some warblers. A male Reed bunting in all the finery of its full spring plumage.

Over the last week or so I have finally turned my attentions to the increasing numbers of arriving warblers. These birds really bring an area to life as the once silent reeds, scrub and brambles suddenly takes on a whole new life with the incessant whirling, clicks, and scratchy warbles of various species trying to lay claim to a breeding patch. To appreciate this at its best requires the alarm clock to be set to a very early time which will leave you feeling fuzzy headed with tiredness by the early afternoon. Its worth it though.

A Sedge Warbler establishing its territory over an area of brambles from four different song perches.

Another lover of the security provided by a bramble patch is the Grasshopper Warbler. Now I did intend to avoid these this year but then again I say that every year and was once again drawn in by that mesmerizing insect like song. For me watching these birds broadcast their song is one of the real pleasures at this time of year and no doubt I will find myself drawn to them next April.