CORNISH BIRDS OF PREY 4 RAPTORS.

This is part 4 of my visit to the Cornish Birds Of Prey Centre, and features images of a few of the Raptors that are on display.

I must apologise I did not make a note of the species of Eagle featured, so if any one can ID it I would be grateful.

A couple of the images have been featured before but I feel they need to be included again in this set.

EAGLE.

EAGLE.

GYR FALCON.

GYR x FALCON.

GYR x FALCON.

GYR x FALCON.

HARRIS HAWK.

PEREGRINE x SAKER FALCON.

PEREGRINE x LANNER FALCON.

RED TAILED BUZZARD.

RED TAILED BUZZARD.



HAYLE ESTUARY 10 OCT 2010

On Sunday morning took a drive down to Hayle Estuary, It all started of very dull and overcast although there was a lot of birds on Ryans Field, including 2 Little Stints,and six Sandwich Terns. It was then over to the causeway where there were 22 Brent Geese and a fly through Black Tern amongst a good build up of other species.
In the evening went to Stithians Watersports Centre where Steve Rogers gave a slide show of his birding holidays in Cyprus which had some superb bird images.
Next was a talk and slide show by Alan Davis and Ruth Miller on their biggest Twitch in which they spent a year breaking the world record for the most birds seen in a single year they managed 4,341 species in many countries around the world.
If you ever get a chance to see this talk and slide show please try as it is a fascinating account of their journey.

Finally just a few images from Sunday at Hayle Est.

ROCK PIPIT.

CURLEW.

CURLEW.

GREY PLOVER.



FROM THE LAST WEEK

Breaking away from all the melancholy of the last couple of posts, here is an update on the rest of the week.

Went up to Heligan on Thursday for the Green Heron and only managed a few seconds of view when it moved between cover. Had to get back early as Mark had to drive up to Manchester in the afternoon, got 100yds from home and it came up on the pager showing well.

Anyway a short view was better than nothing at all, so here are a few images from a visit to Marazion & Penzance earlier in the week.

LITTLE EGRET,



LITTLE EGRET

BAR-TAILED- GODWIT.

GREY HERON

GREY WAGTAIL.



AUTUMN LEAVES

This is a very melancholy time of the year when everything starts to fade towards winter,but before that nature gives us one last glorious show of colour.

CORNISH BIRDS PREY 3 (THE OWL SET)

This is the third part of my visit to the Cornish Birds Of Prey Centre and features some of the Owls that are on display, From the tiny Scops Owl to the large Bengal Eagle Owl and the Great Horned Owl.

BARN OWL.

BARN OWL

He's one year old and a typical grumpy youngster.

BENGAL EAGLE OWL.

BENGAL EAGLE OWL

GREAT HORNED OWL.

GREAT HORNED OWL

PALE SCOPS OWL.

PALE SCOPS OWL

So tiny and so beautiful.

SNOWY OWL.

SNOWY OWL

TAWNY OWL.



TAWNY OWL.

CORNISH BIRDS OF PREY 2 (THE POWER OF FLIGHT).

For the second post of my visit to the Cornish Bird Of Prey Centre I want to concentrate on the flying display. Now I know a lot of you will look at these images and say they are blurred, but this is what I intended to achieve. I have hundreds of Raptor images of pin sharp birds just stuck in the sky, what I wanted to show was the raw power and aggression of these birds in hunting mode. The only birds which gave me what I was after were the two Harris Hawks, being larger than the others and slightly slower. The American Kestrel was to small, and the Peregrine was to fast and I have plenty of blurred shots of these to prove it. So I kept the ISO setting down to 100 and the shutter speed between 1/300 - 1/400s.

So when looking at the first image of the Peregrine and then the others I hope you will get a feeling of what I was trying to portray.

My own personal opinion these are some of the best shots of the day.

HARRIS HAWK.

HARRIS HAWK.

HARRIS HAWK.

HARRIS HAWK.

HARRIS HAWK.

Being sharper does not have the same effect.

PEREGRINE x SAKER FALCON.



PEREGRINE x SAKER FALCON.

The only shot I got in full speed.

CORNISH BIRDS OF PREY

On Thursday I visited the Cornish Bird of Prey centre at St Columb Major (See information on Side Bar) and had a really pleasant experience.

Needless to say I took loads of Photos (almost 300 ) which will take me a while to process and go through, so I will start with the images below and more of this great visit will appear in forthcoming posts.

Thanks to everyone for their wishes, I am feeling much better though still not 100% after two visits to the quack who diagnosed a throat virus which has to run its coarse. Its  the week of ear ache that's been the worse. (Ok snide comments allowed).

AMERICAN KESTREL.

PALE SCOPS OWL

GYR FALCON x

PERGERINE x SAKER FALCON.



CORMORANT (PREHISTORIC OR WHAT).

Things are beginning to improve slowly,but have not done much birding just a couple of trips to Stithians over the weekend looking for the Pectoral  Sandpiper without any luck. Best I can offer for this post is a couple of images of the nearest thing we can get to a prehistoric bird the Cormorant. I wonder if anyone has a bird or animal in their part of the world which could be called Prehistoric?

CORMORANT.

CORMORANT.