Walmsley Nature Reserve

Today Lisa and I had a trip to the Walmsley Nature Reserve at Wadebridge. We were Lucky enough to share the hide with Colin Selway, who is local to Wadebridge, and a highly experienced
birder.

The first two shots are of a Pectoral Sandpiper, a North American vagrant, the shots are distant and classed as record shots. Colin was of the opinion that two where there but I can only claim one sighting. We also had two Knot, a number of snipe and Black Tail Godwit along with one Gadwall and Shoveler duck.

Northern Shoveler

Knot wih Black Tail Godwit

Gadwall

Spoonbill

A quick post of the Spoonbill at Marazion. Photo taken this morning, early around 0745 and the light conditions poor, overcast and drizzle. I pushed the ISO to 1000 and 1250 to acheive 1/50th of a second shutter speed so the images are noisy. Anyway that's the excuses over with. A descent photo can be seen http://ashleyh-photography.blogspot.com/and Bob Sharples http://bobsharplesphotography.blogspot.com/ blog.

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Snow Bunting

What a lovely day today was so what shall I do. Flu jab at 1205 pm so that's the morning out. I check out Terry Georges Web report to see what is close to home and he reports that the Snow Bunting is still at Nanquidno, in the field adjacent to the airport to be precise. So after lunch off I go with all my kit, sore arm and no sign of the flu. I park close to the birds location and decide to leave the camera for a minute and just take the bins to locate the bird .No one around to ask so its up to me (much more satisfying). So, here I am the great white hunter looking for this bird scanning the field with my Zeiss Victory bins. No sign of a Snow Bunting so I drop the bins from my eyes and low and behold the bird is about four feet from me and feeding. Now I had to run back to the car to get the gear, set up and back to the bird. Please click on the images to enlarge.

Ryans Field

As well as photographing the seals we spent an hour at Ryan's field and photographed the hybrid goose and Canada's. Identification of the hybrid is proving difficult, the thinking is a Dark Morph Snow goose and probably an escapee. However to me the beak and legs look like they belong to a Bar Headed goose, anyway it appears that the bird has been around for a long time .

I snapped the Canada as it flew into the estuary, the only enhancement was to alter the light levels and with the selection tool I moderately sharpened its head.