Blooming!

Dance off, Egret style

Monarch of all it surveys

One from the summer

Gull perched on a post

Keeping squirrels away

Teneral damselfly

Kestrel aloft

Big white bird

I was going to post pictures of a great whit egret, which is another bird that has proved elusive. It continues to elude me, as my pictures are not good enough to share. So instead here is another big white bird, a swan in flight.
 

Off to sunnier climes

Lunch for the kids

Pretty lady

This is one of those dragonflies that display sexual diamorphism - the male and female are different sizes, colours, and body shape. This one was posing for me - just long enough for me to get my pictures, and then off it went.

More butterfly beauties

Speckled wood butterfly

Comma butterfly

Insect interlude

 

 

gatekeeper, butterfly, female

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hot sunny days bring all these beautiful insects into view. All of these were taken within around 600 metres of each other, within two and a half hours. Wonderful displays.

comma, butterfly

ruddy darter, dragonfly, male

red admiral, butterfly

western honey bee

Nest building

Coot behaviour that seemed a little odd.  This coot was building a completely new nest, bringing in material every few seconds. The nest did not exist one week previous - the post was completely alone. This seems very late in the year for a bird to be nesting.

The chick scrambled onto the nest from somewhere else, after I had been watching them for some time. The chick is too old to have been born in this nest. It later became apparent that this chick seemed attached to this coot, but the adult was one of a pair, the other of the pair also having a single coot in tow. This was also odd; if there was to be a second brood, why not use the (presumably) existing nest. Why was the chick using this new nest. The chick spent half its time, when the adult approached, helping build the nest; and half eating the new nesting material. Again this lasted some time.

Eventually the juvenile left for elsewhere. Throughout all this time the adult was industriously building, plaiting reeds into the structure. Two days later, the activity was still the same, except that the nest had become detached from the post and was floating some distance away.

Local wildlife photography

Over the last 18 months I have been introduced to the delights of local sites for wildlife photography. A friend of mine, a birder, has been introducing me to some of the many sites across Bedfordshire, and Buckinghamshire. As they are so local, provide a variety of habitats, and have a wide range of wildlife (mostly birds), it has been a opportunity to polish my skills, and use a range of different photographic equipment. In addition, I learn a lot from their knowledge of birding, even on one occasion photographing blind, under instruction, to capture a rarity that had been spotted. As our emphasis is different, (birding, and photography), we complement each other in these excursions.

The pictures above were captured at a nature reserve which has become a regular haunt. While I am quite pleased with these shots, the second does show one of my continued technical issues: I tend to frame so tightly that I cut off parts of the subject. (In this case about 2mm of tail.) Still learning.

Wet, non-zombie, cormorant

Poseur? Moi?

Today's pictue choice

Egret standoff at the Heronry

Picture of the day