Jiminy Cricket

ByDawn

Down at the bottom of the garden there’s a chirping coming from the hedge, but it’s not a bird, it’s a Dark bush-cricket. He suns himself on a plant pot, before boinging back off to the hedge.       (Click images to view larger…) If you like what you see, please consider sharing!  …

A Very Hungry Caterpillar

ByDawn

Firstly, apologies again for the blog silence. A number of things have been holding me back recently, not least a bad shoulder injury. (Think: a dog, on lead, and a rabbit, with ‘Carry on dog walking’ style falling over due to the lead wrapped round my legs, all followed by a three hour visit to…

The King of the River

ByDawn

The Norfolk Broads, a watery wonderland that has to be one of my favourite places. At dawn and dusk it’s a magical wild world, that huge Norfolk sky reflected in the mirror still surface of the river, giving you the impression of being held suspended in an infinite space, immersed in the bluest sky, surrounded…

A is for Avocet

ByDawn

Had a wonderful weekend away in North Norfolk, great weather, great company, and a bit of photography too of course. To start my ‘Big 30’ project I concentrated on photographing the Avocets at RSPB Titchwell. I must admit do seem to have a lot of favourite birds, but the Avocet is definitely up there with…

A Big Year

ByDawn

This year is a big year for me. Not in the same sense as a bird watchers ‘Big Year’, where they try to see as many different species as possible, but because today I turned 30. So in a fit of ambitiousness I decided to set myself the challenge of photographing 30 different wildlife events…

New kids on the block

ByDawn

It’s that time of year when you might start seeing some strange new birds in your garden. Newly fledged youngsters often look very different from their parents. This baby Starling for example looks totally unrelated to the dark, glossy, iridescent adult birds. Yet they fly together in formation, adults leading their offspring to the feeder…

The Dawn Chorus

ByDawn

I got up this Sunday morning early enough to hear the start of the dawn chorus. The Song Thrush began, backed by the local Blackbirds, then Robins and Wrens. A Blue tit joins in with a simple trill, and a Woodpigeon adds his two penny worth too. Their voices merge into a wall of beautiful…

A few birds

ByDawn

A quick round up of this weeks photography, I’ve been trying out a new lens combination and I’m thoroughly impressed. What do you think? All of these were taken using Nikon’s 300mm f/2.8 G IF-ED VR and TC-17E II Teleconverter. It’s an extremely well balanced set up, much more manageable than my current Sigma 500mm…

Footprints in the mud

ByDawn

Winter is a great time for searching for tracks and signs of animals. These prints appeared in the garden recently, and setting up the remote camera showed they belonged to a rather handsome Muntjac deer. He’s a regular night time visitor now, finishing up the apple I put out for the Blackbirds. Take a look…

Dove Step

ByDawn

Happy New Year to you all! I just wanted to make you aware of a fantastic group of people, who will be walking 300 miles to raise money and awareness to save the Turtle Dove. A subject very close to my heart as regular readers will know. Turtle Doves had a terrible year last year,…