I had to pop down to Rottingdean today. It was high tide, and very windy.
Sea crashing against the Undercliff Walk at Rottingdean
Down on one of the few more sheltered parts of the beach, a small group of oystercatchers were lazily grazing among the pebbles.
High above, the fulmars were patrolling the cliffs.
Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.
A long descriptive title, but there’s little in the way of a theme to today’s post. Just a collection of photos, starting with a blackbird in the garden.
Female blackbird
Overhead, a buzzard put in an appearance, to the annoyance of the local gulls.
This is a neighbour’s cat (which uses our garden a lot), jumping up on the fringe of the pond. For some reason it likes that spot 😉 The first three are consecutive frames, which are a nice demonstration of the benefits of the 10fps capability of the 7D Mark II.
Later in the day we headed down to Rottingdean, taking advantage of a mild and sunny afternoon.
The Undercliff Walk at Rottingdean
The first rise of cliffs in the distance is Saltdean, and beyond that are Telscombe Cliffs. We didn’t go as far as Telscombe, but I did take a couple of long range shots of one of its residents. This is uncropped, taken at 400mm.
Peregrine falcon perched high on Telscombe Cliffs
And now a couple of crops (with the 1.4 extender added). It’s still a very long way off.
Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. The final two shots had the Canon EF 1.4xIII extender added.
After yesterday’s outstanding encounter with a great white egret, today was – as expected – somewhat calmer. We headed out to Seven Sisters Country Park and did the walk down to Cuckmere Haven. It’s a beautiful spot, but can get a little crowded at times which means that it isn’t always ideal for wildlife watching. The views are stunning though.
And as it turned out, the wildlife was quite good too. A couple of herons were among the early sightings. Nothing spectacular, but nice to see. The first good sighting was all too fleeting. A smallish bird zipped over, heading out to the cliffs. I was talking to another birder at the time, and the consensus was that it is a merlin, our smallest bird of prey. If we’re correct that’s a first for me. The photo is dire. It came in over my shoulder so I could only catch it heading away from the camera.
I could be wrong about the i.d., but the conversation quickly turned to that other merlin (no, not the wizard), the engine of the Spitfire. And remarkably on cue, one flew over just to prove the point. It’s a 2-seater (converted apparently for training purposes) and there’s precious little data about it on the web, though it seems have been part of the Dutch airforce at one time. Its index is SM520.
We have several airshows in the region at this time of year, so no doubt it’s been taking part in one or other of those.
There were two other notable sightings, the first coming at the far end of the bird of prey scale. Having seen the smallest (I think), this is one of the largest: an osprey.
The second notable bird was a curlew. While not wholly unexpected, they are relatively uncommon and always a pleasure to see.
To close, a video clip of the egret from yesterday.
Camera note: all wildlife photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens. The two landscapes were with the EF17-40mm f/4L USM lens.
