Golden Plower

A couple of nights ago, I was off to Redmires again to try shoot Golden plower.
It was tough in the beginning they were not where I expected they would be, I was thinking if it's the nice weather that has been now for a few weeks, made them change places.
It's pretty dry in the fields and they maybe just moved to places where it's a little wetter for there it might be easier to find food.
Anyway, after strolling around the area for a few hours I started to give up hope of getting a photo of the bird, I heard that they were there because they beep quite a lot in the evenings but it's hard to see them in the tall heather bushes .
The sun would be about an hour behind the horizon, so now it was a little hurry, but when I was on my way home walking in the heather, I heard a beep that came from an area where they have burned away heather and there it was.
But now I had to get close enough to get some good pics of it, so I lie down and crawl into the heather and hope that it would not fly away, but I was lucky that the bird was not so afraid, I could lie in the heather and try to attract it using whistle.  But closer than 10m it did not come,  I was pretty happy anyway.

This weekend I will go to the south/west coast of Wales, where I'll visit Skomer island. It's a small island that is known for its wildlife, especially puffins for there is southern England's largest colony of them. There is also 1/3 of the world's Manx shearwaters, but they only come to the island in the dark hours so it will probably be no photos of them.

Golden Plower/ljungpipare beeping

 

Golden Plower in Redmires

As I wrote in the previous blog post I hoped the weather would clear up at night and it did. So, at: 18.00, I took and biked up to Redmires, forecast had promised Cloudy with rain, but when I checked out from the apartment, it was clear skies and warm in the air but still it was windy, which I felt when I approached Redmires for up there it is pretty open.
You could say that Redmires is low mountain area. My goal was to shoot Golden plower for now they had taken the prohibition to enter open access land, so now it was free to go wherever I wanted, among heather bushes.
For it is there most of the Golden plower is hiding, but it is easy to locate them by whistling on their special way so they usually respond directly :) found a couple that I immediately tried to sneak me in, it was just  lie down in the wet heather and creeping, crawling up to them. As the closest I was about 20m away wanted to of course get even closer but they were right suspicious.
 I would also be if a big lump trying to creep up to me :) after that I visited  the little creek that runs there, and found my little favorite voles namely water vole. Found a small one that I took some pictures, but now the clock was already 21:00 so it was pretty dark down in the creek, So it was just to raise iso in the camera to 1000 turn on the vr function and lie down on the ground, so I got some sharp image.
But now it was time to start getting back home did not go home directly, but biking around the area in search of owls before it was pitch black outside. But unfortunately, the owls won again: (: (

Here is some pics from there.


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Pied Wagtail

Golden Plower/Ljung pipare

The little quite water vole

Linnet/Hämpling

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Lapwing and the moon in background

Golden Plower And More

Yesterday I went up  4:00 and then cycle to Redmires reservoir, had no great expectations went mostly there just to see what's up. It was a nice sunrise, but after half an hour so it was quite overcast, which was a bit sad for according to weather forecast, it would at least be partly cloudy. On site, I looked after a bird that they had seen there the day before, and it was a sacred ibis is a true rarity. But no trace of it unfortunately, so I went to the place where I usually see the cuckoo up close. But it did not get to where I sat, but the cuckoo was in the area that could be heard all the time. Could not sit there in the cold and the wind so I started walking in the area, I get to a place where there are usually not so many people. because there i have better chance to see birds which is not disturbed. But now  it was so early, anyway.  On the way there came two oystercatcher flying in fairly close, so I took some pictures of them. Then went a bit further and saw a snipe flying in with their special sounds, and after a while so I come to a party with a bunch of heather fields and this is where I found the golden plower. It was a group of 10 pc but unfortunately  it's difficult to get close to these birds, partly because the national park rangers has turned off the areas where the birds nest which is good but Also because they simply are shy. Then I went around the area for a while but found nothing special so I went home again; I was at home at 10.

Golden Plower/Ljungpipare

Nice morning

Oystercatcher/Strandskata

Canada goose chicks

Curlew calling