Martyn Pitt

Heron flying low to avoid radar

Here's one for Steve, ... the Grasshopper Warbler, it has one of the weirdest calls of any bird, the whole bird vibrates whilst it emits a clicking noise similar to the noise a grasshopper makes, great to watch them when they are calling, they really give it their all.

Had a visit from a (we assume) juvenile Osprey, it circled around over the reservoir a few times, and made several plunges into the water for a wash before heading off It was obviously camera shy as it never came as close as I would like ... but they never do

Sad news indeed, graced the 86 Club many a time. Rest in peace John Martyn & Carol

A female Sparrowhawk

Congratulations Steve

You can have an Osprey as well ... we had two fly through this morning ... it is a pretty heavy crop as the bird was a long way away

Here you go Steve .. a Swallow in the rain and gloom of this morning

Caught a pair of Goldcrest displaying yesterday, tiny little bird, always on the move

They will be sheltering from the snow, thinking look at that daft lump stood out in this

A male Sparrowhawk landed on the top of the feeder rail for a nano second, unfortunately for him the smaller birds had seen him coming and all found somewhere to hide. I do love their eyes ... and look at those feet ... menacing

We thought that squirrels were responsible for the damage to this dead tree, turns out we were wrong

We had one at Belvide a couple of years ago, one chap could not find it and asked where it was, I gave him general directions to it's location but he could not find it, so I put it in his scopes field of view ... he still couldn't see it

It is a Bittern Peter ... and pretty difficult to find when they stand still amongst the reeds, quite a scarce bird to get over our way

What a dull grey day, never mind this Teal kindly did a low level fly by

The other camera is close and wide angled, you can tell by the large depth of field where everything is in focus, it could easily have been on a remote and operated by the guy in the shot.

I am not that tall standing up That's tea all over the keyboard again

Duck or Rabbit ... you decide

There were about a dozen of them, there are good numbers of them around the reserve

Like a blob of candy floss on a stick, the cute and adorable Long Tailed Tit

New Years Day I got a distant flight snap of a Glossy Ibis, I was just testing some settings for flight shots and as it was still pretty gloomy, and the bird distant I had not really clocked what it was looking through the viewfinder, then I zoomed in on it on the back screen ... that really pissed off the regular birders who had all left the hide about five minutes before it flew over. I don't keep a list of birds Steve, I do this as a hobby ... I count things for my job

A male & female Siskin out in the rain ... bet they wished they had stayed at home for the winter

Cheers Russell ... here is a cute little Marsh Tit

Nice job Russell ... better have a Kingy then to welcome the new thread ... From 1/1/2016 This one got really close, less than 10m away

Cheers Steve ... been pretty naff weather here as well, I have been out a couple of times and come home without any worthwhile shots, Saturday it was that gloomy I was taking shots of the Kingfisher @ 1/30 of a second ISO 12800, not ideal to say the least.