Martyn Pitt

A few flight shots from last weekend. 1st a Wood Pigeon, one of the many thousands that migrate here from Northern Europe and Scandinavia The bird with piercing blue eyes, a Jackdaw All aboard the Skylark Finally a Cormorant, one of 80 that flew into the reservoir, I am amazed there are any fish left

A few years ago I was watching one stuffing itself with sloe berries, it got one stuck in it's throat, thought it was going to choke on it for a moment, until it finally forced it down. I never thought of them as being wary, probably just scared of dodgy northerners

A Lesser Black Back gull having a go at a juvenile female Peregrine

There is a UK release on Destiny which I am sure is a legitimate re-issue, shouldn't cost more than £20

Black Headed Gull taking off and diving for food or anything that looks like food, and one coming in to land

Horrible and grey this morning, meant shooting at high ISO speeds, still getting the Kingfisher on the post in the bay was a bonus, shame the light wasn't better but always nice to get one.

A Wren from today

They are spot on

Having worked for 20 days straight, this was my first time out with the camera for a while. A lovely male Stonechat

I resize mine with Photoshop Elements when I am processing them, usually 1000 pixels on the longest edge, saves swamping the page and makes them load a bit quicker for people with slower connection speeds. When I was using Windows there were a few free image resizing programs on the web, just do a Google search loads come up here is one https://imageresizer.codeplex.com/releases/view/30247

Which is scarcer issue or demo?

A cute Willow Tit

They are plagued with them down south, whilst something rather colourful to photograph I would imagine they could have a detrimental effect on the native birds once they colonise an area.

Three Swallows flew south over Belvide yesterday morning, here is a photo of one of them We also had a couple of Curlew Sandpipers drop in, shame they would not come closer for a better shot

The first one looks like a Southern Hawker, and the second one a Common Darter (which was what I thought from your description before)

I would have just started Part 2 Russell Anyway here is a blue and orange exorcet from Sunday, a bit far out across the reservoir even with the big lens, but at the speed they travel always a bonus to get it in focus and in the frame. I saw 5 of them on Sunday, including a pair zooming across the reservoir. We had joked that they were heading for the ringing groups nets, when we got around by them it appeared one had. I should point out that these guys are licensed to carry the ringing and recording.To see how small these birds are in the hand is always an eye opener. The ringer took this Kingfisher and laid it on it's back in his open palm, it just lay there for a minute then flew off.

I do not consider it unwieldy Russell ... just a case of clicking on the last page. Why not open another thread for general photography, to run in tandem with it

For the larger one it could be a Southern Hawker, the red / orange one probably a Common Darter. Look these up on line and see which looks the closest to what you saw, just be aware that immature ones can vary slightly in colouring.

A few Lapwings from this morning, the sun really brings out the full range of colours of their feathers.

If it's got a lot of blue on it I would guess a Migrant Hawker at this time of the year. There is a great Dragonfly ID book - Britains Dragonflies by Dave Smallshire & Andy Swash, Dave & Andy are experts on them, the book is well worth the money.

A juvenile Ringed Plover from this morning

Cheers Stu

Curtis Lee

Lenny Welch - 100 Pounds of pain ?????

"Your Autumn of Tomorrow .... sorry never heard of it"