Pendeen And The Gump

A lovely winters day today so I made a concerted effort to get out with the camera. The first stop was Whoon Gumpus, basically the moorland below Chun Castle, the iron age hill fort at North Road near Pendeen. The Gump, as we locals know it is a contiguous moorland bordering the Cornwall Wildlife Trust  Chun Moor's reserve, an area that looks totally suited to Hen Harrier and Short Eared Owls. No luck with them but I caught up with Goldie's, the first this year for me, as I have been a recluse.
 Pendeen was awesome, with hundreds, if not in the thousands of Auks flying through, and close. The sea was not so rough as yesterday but still frightening, the Auks normally fly just above sea level exploiting the up draught from the surface water as  many sea sea birds do, but today they sometimes had to rise forty to fifty feet or more, avoiding the massive waves. At times when the huge waves rolled in and formed a tube, the tube collapsed creating a noise was like a peal of thunder. If anyone gets the urge to photograph the seabirds at Pendeen over the next few days, please take extreme care, and do not be tempted to stand on the outer rocks. I was well back from the sea and photographed the Auks with a 300mm lens.

Golden Plover

Guillemot and Razorbill

Kittiwake

Kittiwake

Garden Birds

Tonight I should be at the Cornwall Wildlife Trust camera club but workload ended that, I am finding it difficult to dedicate time to my hobby lately,due to a frustrating back problem and work, so while Bob Sharples was photographing a Northern Harrier I was photographing garden birds hunched over my camera in the kitchen grumbling about back pain.The usual influx of overwintering Blackbirds brought a few to my garden feeding on the Cotoneaster. Also whilst the birds are feeding, the ever watch-full Sparrowhawk was eyeing up it's dinner from the neighbours roof.

Drift Reservoior

Sunshine makes you feel good so I attempted a trip Drift Dam today . I kept things light in weight and walked out to the hide. The only bird of note was a lovely male golden eye. The usual overwintering tufted duck was again down in numbers, plenty of Lapwing in the fields. The only reasonable image taken was of this female Mallard, boring to some but beggars can't be choosers.

Longship Lighthouse

I have been out of action for six weeks carrying a back injury  so today I thought I would try an easy access site  and photograph  the stormy weather. We went to Lands End to photograph the stormy sea breaking around the Longships Lighthouse.