Making the effort

I made a determined effort to get out and about this week, I took advantage of the gorgeous weather to force myself out with the camera.

Old Moor RSPB reserve was my first port of call, surprisingly there wasnt as much about as I had hoped but the Wath Ings hide produced some good stuff, including a Curlew Sandpiper. I wasnt able to take photos due to the distance of the bird and an impossible heat haze, but a gentleman kindly allowed me to view the bird through his Scope and get another tick for the year (143 so far).

The water levels are very low and this meant that some nice stuff came close to the hide, there were several Herons both Juv and adult present.

Juvenile Heron.



Adult Heron.


Also present were at least four Greenshanks.

and Green Sandpiper, note the difference between these two pics, the sun is not out for this first one,

whereas it was for this second.

A trip the following day to the Anglers Country Park between Barnsley and Wakefield also proved very interesting. The main hide is an excellent place to see most of the birds that visit the lakes, the Lapwings were there in high numbers.

Half a dozen Cormorants were also present. This is a cropped shot of one doing a low fly past.

whilst this one was sunning itself on the rocks. This looks better in larger form and clicking on the pic should open a new window to show it.

The star of the trip, for me was this Juv Great crested Grebe, it came pretty close and the two following pictures are only small crops.

It was a lovely bird and surprisingly was alone, clearly making its own way in the world.

I have some more shots to post of the 2 days activity and will do so shortly.

Small is beautiful.

I have no desire for photography at the moment as I have slipped into yet another period of deep depression. I have only these small things to show you.

Hoverfly,

Wasp,

Greenbottle.

I am thinking of giving up photography, I am no longer enjoying it. I am no longer enjoying life though so perhaps the two are linked. I will eventually sell my kit if my mood does not improve. I will advertise it on here first.

I am not looking for sympathy, nor do i want messages of support. I merely feel that as this blog is a big part of my life I can use it to express my feelings. I have struggled with Depression for many years and last year decided that I will no longer use tablets to keep my life balanced. I do not want to spend my time in a false world of medicine induced happiness, not that the pills ever made me feel that happy anyway. I will try and get through it in my own way.

I'm a crap photographer anyway so its no great loss. I much rather enjoy looking at photos in others blogs and websites.

Happy Days.

No wildlife shots today, I've been busy with the wedding of my daughter, Lesley and my son in law, Matthew. I only have the one daughter and I was so proud to see her get married, It was a great day and lots of fun.

Back soon with some more wildlife shots, promise.

More from Wales, They talk funny you know!

More stuff from Wales, competely random in order.



One day we went to the River Glaslyn Osprey Project on the outskirts of Porthmadog. The Project is run by the RSPB and is staffed largely by Volunteers. We saw Osprey through the scopes and Its great to hear that the birds are returning year on year and breeding succesfully.

Another bird that has returned are the swallows. A pair nest inside the hide, here are two chicks on the nest, they are completely at ease with all the visitors, the adults fly in and out with food an barely pay any heed to the human activity.


In my last post I think I alluded to the fact that there were lots of Herring gulls seen. I like this flight shot of one, its different to the norm having its wings forward.

Whilst on Anglesey my son came across this little fellow or lass on the road. It wasnt very well. I could see a tick attached to its underside and it was breathing funnily. I moved it to the side of the road and hope it manages to live.

I was sitting wait for a bite whilst fishing and this pair of Damsell flies started to perform infront of me. Got this shot with my 300mm lens so apologies for the poor quality.

This Greenbottle was caught with my 100mm macro lens. I think I would like to get into Macro photograpy a bit more. I love to see some of the offerings on the UKNP forum site, I can't match some of the shots on there but I am pleased with the first few efforts.

We saw 44 different bird species whilst in North Wales, thats over 1/4 of my year to date list all seen in 5 days. I think that Wales has so much to offer, and have been watching the wild Wales series on TV, it has certainly opened my eyes to the diverse wildlife population that this part of the British Isles has to offer. I would strongly advise yu all to take a trip to Wales, it might be the best experience of your lives.

Just a few more pics to follow in my next post. As always click on pics for larger versions.

Back from Welsh Wales

I had a very nice time in Wales, with lots of birds seen and some not only first for the year but some lifetime firsts. However the weather was pants so there aren't many great shots, Its a mixed bag, so rather than just showing birds or one particular thing I'm going to mix it up over the next few postings. The one constant during the trip were the Herring Gulls, They were everywhere and although I've seen Herring Gulls before I was still amazed by the size of them.


I made the mistake of throwing bread out to some Blackbirds that were hanging around our caravan one morning in the hope of getting some shots, when I did it there were no other birds in sight. Yet almost before the first scrap had hit the ground there were a dozen Herring Gulls outside.

During a fishing trip to Anglesey I managed a few close up shots of a few smaller things. These were all hand held shots using my 100mm macro.

This is, I believe, a Magpie Moth.

This is a Large White Butterfly.

I have looked for this in both the Collins insect guide and the internet and I think its a Potato Capsid.

This is a Greenbottle fly, I dont like flies at all, but the make up of these things is amazing.

During the week I tried a bit of Landscape photography, again in poor light, This is not a good shot technically but the huge expanse of rock behind this tower was impressive, I have a few more which I'll post over the next time or two.

A trip to some waterfalls near Llanbedr was amazing, the weather was not great, very grey and humid, and very wet, muddy walking conditions but the waterfalls were something to see and I'm glad I went.

More to follow soon, however on the birding front I mentioned seeing some new birds, I will list the birds we saw in a future post but the new birds were, Great Skua and Sandwich Tern. Unfortunately I did not have the camera with me on the occasion that I saw these 2 birds. Suffice to say I was very happy, especially with the siting of the Skua, it was just off shore and was attempting to get a young Black Headed Gull off the sea, It was being mobbed by other BHG's but at one point it did manage to grab the young bird and start to fly off with it, but the sheer pressure from the other birds forced it to drop it. It was very amazing stuff.