A walk along the river yesterday and a bird I've never photographed, a bullfinch. I'd been hiding for a couple a few hours counting kingfisher flybys (got 8 and 2 perched but too far away, work in progress ) this male was chasing a female in and out of the trees and bushes both sides of the river, probably looking to mate with her. They started to come quite close, this one was about 15 feet away, I think they began to see me as little threat.
Yip, the background isn't great (typical Ayrshire sky) but I wasn't letting a sitter like this go.
I've watched the Avocets chase off all types of birds, various ducks, geese, even a swan but today I saw them stand back and 'allow' a Moorhen to take their egg. It was a fair way off so not a good shot and it all happened quickly, almost before I realised what was happening ... I was surprised to see the Moorhen allowed to get away with it.
It's the first time I've been able to see how many they've been sitting on, I can see at least two. Alas not the greatest of photographs. I just hope the rain we've had today hasn't caused the river level to rise and cover this spit of land.
Alas the oystercatcher nest got flooded after 12 hours of heavy rain, both the birds were still hanging around, either flying about the nest site or landing on what bit of the island remained above the water....
I was quite pleased to see the Kingfisher so close, alas it was 20:30pm so the light was poor so I had to use iso1600 for these two shots. I see them quite regularly, usually just a blue and orange flash as they are flying along rivers and canals.
Little Egret. It's interesting seeing how different it's hunting method is from the Grey Heron, were the heron stands still these move about a lot, they also shuffle their feet to disturb fish and other prey.
Kingfisher, whilst it was much further away the light was infinitely better. This is a 100% crop from the original. Only had to wait 2 hours between 5-7pm for it to appear...
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