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Lovers Tiff!

Came across this pair of Kingfishers busy digging their burrow on a lakeside near Thetford. Great to observe them going in and out taking in turns to dig, and chase away unwanted attention from another male in the area. Difficult photography conditions as the site is about 50M from the nearest observation point, so need long lens plus extender. Also, the site is a bit in the shade, but great to see them flying around each other with the odd fight along the way. Only way to tell the sexes apart is the female has a reddish bottom to her beak.                     ...

3 Barn Owls on the marsh.

  Great trip to the Norfolk marsh this morning, thanks to Andy Brown for the tip-off. Up at 6AM, up to my knees in marsh mud in the reeds by 7.30 with all my kit, ready to go. Always good while you are waiting to keep checking the light levels and adjusting ISO to as low as you can get away with as the sun comes up. 3 Barn Owls hunting in glorious morning sunshine gave us some great photo opportunities. It really makes you think how easy most of us humans have it when you see how hard these birds have to work just to get breakfast!    ...

2017 Norwich Peregrine family.

After catching the end of the Norwich Cathedral Peregrine Falcon season last year and seeing the last 2 fledglings of 4 fledge, (before unfortunately all dying), I have been visiting the site since March this year to see the full story unfold. On my first visit this year it was all action, the new female Falcon, GA, (so called because of her leg ring number) had just laid one egg and was fussing about on the Platform. The male (Norm!), or Tiercel, from the latin so called as they are a third smaller than the female, was   busy keeping a juvenile intruder at bay and stooping on it repeatably until eventually went. After all the excitement I witnessed the pair...

Kingfishers by the stream.

I went to a stream that I've not visited for a while and a couple of Kingfishers flew past, so I found a place to hide down that looked like a fishing spot and waited. After about an hour a juvenile male stopped and spent 10 minutes going from branch to branch in the afternoon sun. I just kept still and he seemed happy for me to snap away, allowing me to get some nice images.    I went back again a couple of times in the early morning and the 2 parents flew by, with the female perching for a short while every time in the morning sun. I could see them flying across the field from the nest site, and at one point she stopped for a rest on the phone wi...

Red Deer Rut

A nice day spent at the weekend in Richmond Park with fellow photographer Andy ‘Chester’ Brown amongst the Red Deer that are starting the annual ‘Rut’. The big stags have their fully developed antlers and boom and bark at each other as they establish their territory ready for breeding. Some walk through the foliage and gather as much of the fern on their antlers to make them look bigger and more threatening before charging at any rival stag that wanders across its path.             We got there before dawn and were surprised to see 3 urban foxes as wandering about around the streets near the entrance, no...

A few days spent at Old Buckenham Park.

Spent a few early mornings and evenings over at the Old Buckenham Country Park site to check out how the wildlife is progressing. Great to see the male kingfisher using the perch we put out, he visited between 6 and 7AM, first catching and eating a fish himself, then catching 4 more fish which he turned around so it was head facing out (if they eat one they take it head first so the spines and scales go down easier) and flew to the nest each time to give to his young, hopefully see some young soon! The pond is in a lovely spot which catches the sun nicely. While waiting for the Kingfisher, the Barn Owl was hunting successfully, taking plenty of short tailed...