Trough of Bowland Bonus.

On my visit's to the Trough photographing dippers I had the pleasure of seeing duckling being brought to the stream for the first time by their mother.They entered the  the stream about 30yds upstream and before long they were floating past me at close quarters and I managed a few images as they passed by.A pair of grey wagtails flited here and there and one landed on a rock near enough for me to photograph.On the way home I stopped at a spot were I had seen willow warbler before and even though it was hard work to capture images of them I managed a few handheld.I have posted a few of my efforts below from an enjoyable day out.

DIPPER DELIGHT,

On a recent trip to the Trough Of Bowland with Brian Rafferty we had a lovely hour on one of the many streams photographing dippers.It was a wonderful day out made all the better by these charming birds.I have returned on five more occasions to photograph these birds and will be posting more images as they find food to feed to there hungry young,I've posted a few images below for your enjoyment from the first visit.

ADDER SPECIAL.

The blog is having it's first birthday this week and I wanted to publish a post that I hope you think is a bit special.I've been holding back some adder images that I managed to capture in the middle of March.It was a wonderful sunny morning with the temp about 6c and a slight NW breeze which I thought would be ideal  conditions for the adders.To the Trough of Bowland I travelled excited in my quest and after about 15mins I found my first adder managing to capture a few images before it disappeared into the bracken.I searched for about 45mims before I came across another adder unfortunately it wasn't in a very good position for photographs.I sat and waited and eventually it moved into a better position,slowly moving foward I managed to get  very close to the adder and capture what I think are great images.I was totally relaxed and never felt threatend and I think the snake was exactly the same.I spent about 20mins in this position capturing many images ofthis beautiful snake and felt very privileged to share a few moments in the private life of this wonderful snake.I used a canon 100mm macro non is lens on a bean bag f8 iso200 640sec..I have posted a few of my fav images for you to enjoy.

Godwit's at Newton Marsh.

After doing my duty on saturday morning taking mother dear mother to the hairdressers and the better half to a farmers market in Preston I got back home to go on my compture when all of a sudden the sun broke through.Rushing to get my gear I set of to Newton Marsh to see what was about.A couple of dozen widgeon and teal were still about,plenty of shellduck,mallards,coots and moorhen,I counted 9 male shoveler unusually high for this time of year and a pair of tufted duck not common on the marsh.Plenty of nesting lapwing with good numbers of redshank and singing skylark,mamals present were 2 hares.A flock of about 40 blacktailed godwits were distant on the pools,but fortunately for me ther were 2 by the roadside,one in lovely summer plumage and I managed to capture some images of this beautiful bird.A very enjoyable couple of hours.I have posted a few of my better efforts below.

Test Post.

A few images from Newton Marsh taken over the last couple of days just to see if the settings on my blog  are ok after my efforts to update.

Back to Clougha.

A few images of the other birds on the Clougha fells that I managed to capture while I was after the red grouse.There were a pair of stonechat back on territory but I only managed to capture images of the female,while sat down having a drink a meadow pipit landed a few yards away and I rattled a few shots off.On my way home I saw a kestrel hovering and by the time I had managed to stop a beautiful male had dived into the field and caught a beetle [I think] I photographed it handheld through the passenger window and am pleased with the results.I've posted a couple of images of each bird below for your enjoyment.