Canaries

Lisa and I have just had a holiday on Gran Canaria and it was hot. The area was Maspalomas, in Maspalomas (as those who have been there will know) there is an area of natural Dunes, the area was created by sea currents bringing in and depositing Saharan sands over thousands of years. On the dunes there is a natural Lake and is a designated Nature Reserve. It is a staging post for migratory species migrating from Africa to their Northern breeding areas. The following photographs are of a male and female Sardinian warbler taken on the Dunes.

Bees Feed The Birds and Us

Tonight I watched a programme on the collapse of the Honey Bee ,and as we all know the Honey Bee is in a serious decline, with the threat of extinction of the wild species in this country. This is due to several factors such as the Verroa Mite, insecticides, pollution and the way they are exploited. I guess an indicator to the state of the environment
Back in the spring I was playing around in the garden photographing the Bees foraging on my Cotoneaster, and they love it. Recently I photographed the berries, the product of the Honey Bees Work. The last is a photo I took in the winter of a Black Cap Feeding from the bush. The Berries are loved by the Thrush family, and I was fortunate enough to have had three Waxwings feeding on the same bush a few years ago.
Anyway the moral of this story is, look after your Bees. Please click on the images to enlarge

The Pollination

The Fruit


The Feed

Return of The Magic Box

Hoorah!!! I've got my camera back, well "a replacement" collected today at South West Optics. How fantastic is household contents insurance with accidental cover. Lisa and I then went down to Glendurgan and Durgan village on the Helford river. I set my camera up in the cafe then had a go with my 18 to 200 lens.

The Squirrel is an interesting shot as it is eating a bamboo shoot, I thought only the Panda ate Bamboo shoots. Their were lots of Dragonfly hawking up and down the valley, and down in the village of Durgan on the beach Got a very mediocre shot of a Med Gull. The Dragonfly is a Gold ringed Dragonfly (thanks for the Dragonfly ID Monty).

Trichomoniasis

The following images are of a Greenfinch photographed in the garden today. The bird is looking extremely poorly and is probably suffering from Trichomoniasis. The trichomonad parasite lives in the upper digestive tract of the bird, and its actions progressively block the bird’s throat making it unable to swallow food, thus killing it by starvation. You can find information on the subject on the RSPB site along with a reporting procedure.