Category Archives: water birds

A Short Tail and other birds

March 5, 2015 by Words | 4 Comments

I’ll start with the title bird, a male blackbird that I’ve been watching for the past week or so. He’s missing his tail feathers, though they do seem to be recovering slowly. He can fly, but tends to keep to the same small area between the edge of Falmer Pond and a local garden. He’s certainly quite bold, and as a pond regualr deserves a mini-feature here.

Blackbird with missing tail feathers

Blackbird with missing tail feathers

Blackbird with missing tail feathers

The other birds today are a moorhen on a rock, and three greylag geese portraits.

Moorhen on a rock

Greylag geese

Greylag geese

Greylag geese

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens.

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Anything you can do…

March 4, 2015 by Words | 4 Comments
Ducks

“Anything you can do”

Ducks

“I can do better…”

Moorhens

“And we can do anything better than you!”

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens.

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Five Birds

March 2, 2015 by Words | 4 Comments

This is something of a return to some of the more regular species that abound at this time of year. Birds are getting ready for nesting and mating, and – common species at least – are very easy to see.

The crows are busy gathering nesting material.

Crow carrying twig

The blackbirds are taking to the rooftops…

Blackbird on roof

The robins are everywhere. This one was in a small wooded area near Falmer Pond. Nice early morning sunshine.

Robin in tree

Possibly my favourite of the early birds, was this male mallard quietly sitting on the church wall. It took me an age to get round to the best angle, but here it is.

Duck on wall

The final shot was taken at lunchtime, when the light was less helpful. It made a change to see a herring gull doing nothing much at all.

herring gull

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens.

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