At last a bright day for photography

Today is the first day in weeks where I haven't had to check the shutter speed.  The light has been stunningly clear today and gave me an opportunity to get to grips with a pair of Great Northern Divers in Newlyn Harbour.  Normally quite distant when feeding offshore, better photo opportunities can be found within the harbour walls.  Newlyn is one of the best of Cornish sites for close views of this impressive bird.

EXIF Detail: Aperture priority.  F/6.7  Shutter speed 1/1000s. Exposure 0.0EV. ISO 400. Centre weighted metering. Focal length 1000mm (600mm F/4 plus 1.7xTC).

Flight-shot target practice

These Black-headed Gulls images were taken this afternoon from the Golden Lion hide at Stithians.  The light was very poor, as it has been for the last few weeks.  The aperture was wide open at F/2.8 using a 300mm Nikon lens.  The shutter speed barely reached 1/250s.  Exposure was -0.3 EV though I have increased the EV to +0.15 in CaptureNX post-processing software.  The ISO was set to 800.

About 20 gulls were flying around the hide at about ten yards distance.  There's not a lot of birds around at the moment so these flight shots were ideal target practice.  I used the camera's matrix metering and 11 point focus, allowing the focus point to lock on to the nearest point.  This function seemed to work today on close subjects though generally on more distant birds, I find this function temperamental.

A few more Leach's Petrel images from St Ives

Below are four more images of Leach's Petrels taken at St Ives on Monday. All are in heavy moult.

Naming the "Stuart Hutchings Hide" - 12th December

In memory of Stuart Hutchings, who died in 2006, Stithians main hide will be renamed “The Stuart Hutchings hide”. The event will take place on December 12th at 11am.  This is being undertaken to remember Stuart who was the former warden of Stithians Reservoir, former CBWPS Chairman and former Ranger for the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. Stuart was heavily involved at Stithians from the beginning of the reserve in the mid 60’s, as well as constructing panels in his back garden then erecting them as hides at Stithians. If you knew Stuart or used to bird with Stuart, please feel free to come along.  The ceremony will be led by Cait Hutchings.


Weather permitting a short walk to the dam and back will commence at 1pm.

Leach's Petrels off St Ives but too late for the dark-rumped petrel

Royston Wilkins phoned me to tell me that he had just seen a dark rumped petrel off St Ives Island today.  Within 40 minutes I was on site and had seen five Leach's but sadly didn't connect with the darker bird which had flown into St Ives Bay.  Both Royston and Camborne birder Steve Cox found the bird very close to the beach, in fact, in the exact area as the old sewage outfall, so no more than 100 yards or so from the island car park.  From Royston's and Steve's verbal description, the assumption is a probable Swinhoe's Petrel though dark rumped Leach's Petrels cannot be ruled out.  I won't be putting any descriptions in this blog as I didn't see the bird.  In the meantime, the two Leach's Petrel images below were taken today in the exact area of the dark rumped bird.  So near but so far.

A Turdus in the garden

I took these shots this afternoon of this Redwing feeding on berries in my garden in Truro.   The garden is fairly sheltered so there wasn't too much camera shake.  There are about ten Redwings in the area.  Hopefully if it gets colder, there will be some berries left over for Fieldfares !

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.

More Pacific Diver images from Carnsew Pool, Cornwall

The four images below were taken today in far better light than yesterday. A two hour window allowed me to take these shots at a reasonably close distance of 50 yards. The red eye is just visible as is the chin strap.

In addition, John Chapple's video footage can be viewed on Youtube by clicking  here

Pacific Diver returns for third November on the bounce

An adult Pacific Diver was found by local birder Chris Barnard on Thursday 19th November at Carnsew Pool, Hayle.  Cornwall's first record was an adult found as recently as February 2007 in Mount's Bay.  Presumably the same adult then reappeared on the 23rd November 2007 and spent six days in the bay.  Dave Parker found presumably the same adult in November 2008.  Of interest, a visiting French birder (Frederick Jiguet) reported a possible Pacific Diver again in Mount's Bay on 2nd November 2009.  Thus it is most likely that we have a returning adult bird appearing in November in Cornwall. 

The most obvious difference between the local wintering Black-throated Divers are that they are all in full winter plumage, whereas this Pacific Diver still shows some summer plumage.  This feature was one of the original pointers to its' identity.  In addition, Black-throated Diver is rare at Carnsew Pool.

There are two other records for the UK, both juveniles.  The first UK record was a juv at Farnham GP, 12th Jan to 4th Feb 2007.  The second record was at Llys-y-Fran reservoir from the 2nd Feb to 20th Mar 2007.  From memory (correct me if wrong), this bird also reappeared at the same site, so there is obviously some site fidelity shown by Pacific Divers.  Another bird was also seen last week in Gloucestershire though at the time of writing, I don't have any more info on this individual.

Pacific Diver breeds NE Siberia , and north North America from Alaska east to Hudson Bay.  Winters in the Pacific Ocean, in Asia south to Japan and East China and in North America south to California and Mexico.

EXIF Detail: In poor light and rain.  Aperture wide open at F/5.6.  Shutter 1/250s.  ISO 500. Exposure 0.0EV. Focal length 840mm. Tripod mounted.

Feeding Med Gulls

I took these shots tonight at Carnsew Pool while waiting for the Pacific Diver.  Sadly I missed the diver as it had just flown into St Ives Bay on the low tide.   I'll have another go tomorrow morning.  These Med Gulls though were superb as they fed on small crabs about 30 yards in front of us.

Cornish storm delights the gulls and the paparazzi

These shots of Black-headed Gulls and a Little Gull were taken on Sunday immediately after the big storm of the weekend was abating.  The waves were still massive and hugely impressive as they crashed in front of me on the beach at Long Rock.  The light was changeable and angled towards me, creating some interesting perspectives.  Why paparazzi?  Most of the photographers were papping away at Porthleven - I wish I was there too but the gulls were more appealing.  Check out Keith Hargreave's images via this link: http://keithhargreaves.blogspot.com/ and also Bobbsters images : here