Another big storm at St Ives

A force 10 north-westerly gale overnight ensured impressive numbers of seabirds this morning off St. Ives Island.  Two year ticks and the best tally of Grey Phalaropes this year was worth the cold, the wind, the heavy showers and the £3.70 car park ticket.  Sadly the seven Little Auks were just too tricky and distant to photo well, as was the distant Leach's Petrel.  Below are some of the images of the day.  Apologies for the quality but considering the poor light and wind and distance of these birds, this was the best I could do.

Totals for the day included 28 Grey Phalarope, 7 Little Auk, 1 Arctic Skua (ad), 1 Arctic Tern, 1 Common Tern, 3 Red-throated Diver, several Great Northern Diver, 1 Manx Shearwater, 3 Balearic Shearwater, 3 Little Gull (all ads.), 1 Leach's Petrel, 130+ Common Scoter (mostly imms/females). 100's Auks, 100's Kittiwakes.

EXIF Detail: Aperture F/5.6.  Shutter speed 1/1000s.  ISO 800.  Exposure -0.3EV. White Balance Cloudy. Focal length 840mm.

January storms hit Cornwall

Today is the day-after when the first of the year's big storms hit the county. Land's End recorded the strongest gust of a massive 79 mph. yesterday at 18.00 hrs. That must be hurrican force? Anyway, the birding story must surely be the influx of Grey Phalaropes not only in Cornwall but across the UK. Whilst I tried, I just could not get close enough to photo one! I saw just one today at St. Ives Island at half a mile range. The five together at Red River yesterday had evidently disappeared. The shots below typify birds of the coast but sadly no Grey Phals. The light was stunning - consequently, the shutter speed reached a high of 2500th second at f/5.6, perfect for moving birds. I dropped the exposure down to -0.7. Some of the images appear quite small but they were taken at distances of up to several hundred yards. I used the TC on the 600mm lens and also used the in-camera high speed crop function, effectively doubling the focal length to nearly 1700mm !

The two images below of this adult Gannet moving past St Ives today catches some nice guano sequences, a benefit of the high shutter speed.




The majority of auks in the image below are Razorbill, with one Guillemot near the rear. The smaller auk is actually a lone bird swimming in the sea at a different distance to the flying birds.

Scillonian Pelagic - 13th August 2008

This was the first Scillonian Pelagic trip since 2004. Whilst not a classic, the trip had its moments, not least a diversion to the Scilly Isles to unload several severely sea sick birders, as well as one poor chap who suffered a head wound.

Birding highlights included up to 600+ Storm Petrels, Great Shearwaters, Bonxies and an Arctic Skua which posed more ID questions than it should have.

Photography was difficult as all shots were hand-held, not easy with a heavy D3 and telephoto lens. I took about 800 shots, with approximately 30 that I was happy with! I set the camera to Shutter Priority so that there was the least chance of images being out of focus. Depth of field was not an issue as most birds were fairly distant. I used a polariser filter continuously to gain extra contrast and reduce sea glare. ISO was set to 500. White Balance: Cloudy. Exposure: 0.0 .


The heroes of the pelagic shown below are Martin Elliott, Mark Warren, Royston Wilkins, Leon Wilkins and John Higginson seen "chumming" at the stern of the Scillonian. The stench of rotten fish is overwhelming!