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Kingfisher Project Is Back On, Plus A Few Other Birds

For those that Follow Me On Facebook will know that I have continued my Kingfisher Project due to the location of the autumn morning sun lighting a river pool. Whilst walking the dogs, we watched an adult female perched in amazing light on a tree branch, so can’t waste an opportunity like this. I positioned a perch and setup my popup hide yesterday and was at the river this morning. It didn’t quite go as planned as the Kingfisher didn’t use the perch. It seems as now the water level is so low, she prefers to perch higher up to be able to watch a larger area of water. I have now installed a high perch and will return tomorrow morning.

However, all was not lost, I was able to sit and watch this adult female diving and catching fish many times and on one occasion she came up with a Crayfish. I snapped these images. Notice the wet marks on the branch, this is where she was hitting the Crayfish to kill it before eating. I suspect this is “Princessa” that I photographed when she was a juvenile but as I can’t confirm this I am calling this girl Tufty due to her feathers on the back of her head sticking up. Not sure these are permanently like this or just because she was wet.


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An Old Owl Friend Or a New One?

The local Little Owl I photographed earlier this year has been missing from it’s favourite perch on a dead tree stump for months. I have heard Little Owls in that area and simply put it down to the breeding season.

Last night we passed the tree stump on our way into the village and there was a Little Owl back on top.

This evening I decided to go and have a session with it, I arrived at the stump and the Owl was already sitting there, so turned to plan b. I drove away and prepared the car as a hide and then parked up close to the tree. I find that Little Owls can be approached in this way as long as they don’t see you. I had a camouflage net over the passenger window, a Photography Bean Bag over the top of the open window aperture with the camera resting on top. I managed to get some shots before it flew to various other trees as it was clearly hunting for it’s dinner. (the story continues below the photos)

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Little Owl - Mocho-galego - Athene noctua
📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 @ 1/160sec, f/8, ISO100
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Morning Dog Walk: Lupi’s First Action Shots

For those that are quite new to my blog posts, most mornings I take a camera along on my dog walk with the infamous Wally and our (not so) newcomer Lupi. We took Lupi from the council kennels in Lagos just 10 weeks ago, he is (as good as) deaf and he was very scared and shy (see Blog Post).

In the first few weeks we honestly thought that we would never be able to let Lupi off the lead on the walks, something Wally has the freedom of, however, slowly but surely things have become different and in just this short time we have enough trust in each other that Lupi can enjoy what he is naturally engineered for, running!

Here are a few shots from his first real freedom run around this morning!

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Lupi Enjoying His Freedom!
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New Location At The River

Yesterday I installed yet another perch for the Kingfishers to use. The river pools are getting smaller by what seems like every minute and although it results in the Kingfishers being more concentrated on certain areas, it means I have less good angles to shoot with.

This mornings task was to photograph a Kingfisher just coming into land on the perch with outstretched wings. Everything was going to plan until I broke my number one rule of “Focus on what you are trying to get and don’t be distracted!”.

The camera was setup, pointed at the perch, I had pre-focused, AF settings and fast shutter speed all dialled in. All I had to do was wait for a Kingfisher to fly to the perch. Although there were many visits to the perch all of them approached from in front rather than behind, then one of the young females landed high in a branch of a tree behind the perch. She dived into the water and retreated to another branch directly behind the perch. I wanted to look to see if she had caught a fish and moved the camera and focused on her, she flew right at the perch and I didn’t get the camera moved back in time. Yes, I am kicking myself! This was the last time I saw her this morning as she had already caught two large Louisiana Crayfish.

I did get some portrait shots of her on the perch earlier.

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Common Kingfisher (Juvenile Female) - Guarda-rios (juvenil femea) - Alcedo atthis
📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 @ 1/800sec, f/11, ISO640
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A Very Relaxed Brown Rat

I wandered down to the river this afternoon to collect some Bamboo for our garden and I spotted a Brown Rat just minding its own business on the side of the track. I walked right up to it and it wasn’t at all bothered. I could have actually picked it up, but of course, Rat bites are not pleasant!

On my way back with Bamboo, I noticed it was still in the same place. Was it injured, or ill? Didn’t seem to be as it sat there nibbling on a grass seed. Once back at the house I grabbed the camera and returned and it was still wandering around eating the grass seed so I got these 2 shots of it. After a while it wandered off into the thick bushes. Everyday, the local wildlife continue to surprise me! Now a few of you may mention that do I want this near the house? It’s near the river and of course river banks have Rats, it is also about 500m away from the house, so no real concern, also I think our Cats may have the final say on that one!

Whether you like the thought of Rats or not, you cannot argue that this isn’t cute!

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Brown Rat - Ratazana-castanha - Rattus norvegicus
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