The Ring Ouzel

Yesterday I took the bus to Logde moor, and from there I went to a place called Stanage Edge. From Logde moor It`s about 6km walk, and on the way I passed Redmires Reservoirs.
Of course, I stopped there for a moment to check if there were any unusual birds on site. But it did not so I took some photos of common sandpiper and took the opportunity to hide under a tree while the rain poured down, there came another big rain when I was up on the moorland and there is no protection, good thing I had rainwear.
Met a guy who did not had it, and he was quite wet and looked generally glum;) Arriving at Stanage Edge, so I first admired the landscape, but then I saw two Kestrel hunting at the edge and there was a bird who was annoyed at those two. And the small bird that chased the two suddenly landed a ten meters from me and I could not believe it but it was a Ring Ouzel, I've looked after this bird all spring but now it stood there.
So it was just to take some pictures of it, but then it flew away, I sat there thinking that it might come back and it did, but now even closer. ;) After a while I went for a walk on the edge to check if I could find the Falcons, but I gave up after an hour when they just flew around high in the air. then went back to the ring ouzel and tried to take me even closer to it, was a little surprised that it was not so very timid, good for me because it mostly came back at the same point.
I think I tried to shoot it for about 3h and the closest I was about 6-7m. i think under 3h I saw it 5-6 times. Now, many think, but it's a thrush, the more certain it is a thrush, but a  unusual one, it lives in the mountains and in rocky parts. And there are not very many of them. And  commonly so they are shy and not so easily seen. And it was a new check in the bird book

Ring Ouzel/Ringtrast (female i think)

Stanage Edge it is like this in 5km

After the rain (white peak) 

Sandpiper in rain

Just after the rain

tree pipit

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Rivelin Valley in the evening

Last night, I just had to go out, it has been raining now for 4 days. So it was getting boring being home especially when you have good rain gear.
But yesterday I braved the rain and took the bike down to the Rivelin Valley around 18:30, going to try me on the long-term exposures. Down there, it was of course even darker because of the dense foliage, but it did nothing that was what I wanted.
Walked around for a while to find interesting subjects, wanted to find some sort of backwater, so that I could photograph it. It can get quite interesting motif of this stuff, did not really find any nice backwater but I got some pictures. After a while it started to rain even more, and now began the moisture really get into the clothes, it does not help that you walk on steep trails and similar ;)
Photographed a few interesting sections of the streams before I gave up at 21:30.
All photos are taken with tripod and a shutter time,  between 15-30 seconds and manual mode. On the way home I saw a fox, my first here in england. So now I know that there is one there that I might have an opportunity to shoot sometime. ;)
Today it is raining again and it will continue raining 4-5 days yet, but I'll take me to Redmires anyway.

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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

One evening on the bike

Last evening I biked down to the Rivelin Valley in search of owls, primarily Little Owl. The owl is only 21-23 cm long, so even if it's there, you have to see it, which I unfortunately did not. I have some bad luck with my owls searching because I manage to not find them anywhere. : (But the weather could hardly have been better sunshine and 23 degrees, I can not complain. Did a little detour into the woods thinking I could maybe see a badger at least or a fox, but of course I did not see it either. What I was thinking about was the lack of mosquitoes, which was really nice because when I was in northern Sweden, it was different, as soon as you stopped when you were out walking they came in rather large swarms not so fun to take pictures then ;) But I managed to see a new bird species and it was a Whitethroat not a good picture of it though. Saw also sparrow hawk, Kestrel and a buzzard that I got some pictures of, the other two were too far away. Between 20:00 to 22:00 I biked on small village roads where they've seen owls, the roads go through the animal farms and there tends to be owls because there are usually also the rodents. After 22:00, it is no great idea to be left on, then it's already so dark that it nearly impossible to take pictures.
And today it is thunder and raining so I do not really feel like going out, but will see in the evening if it clears up, then maybe I cycle up to Redmires.

Beatiful butterfly

Blackcap/Svarthätta

Buzzard/Ormvråk

Buzzard

Whitethroat (female)

Swallow

Carrion crows gathers for evening

Whitethroat (male) no good picture ;)

Northern Sweden

Last week I was to visit my little brother, who lives up in Kalix which is in northern parts of Sweden. Would spend eight days there with fishing, photography and other fun stuff. Already the second day, we were on a pike fishing competition, which was from the boat and catch and release. We won the contest, which was our first ever, thanks to my brother's knowledge of the water.
We got three pikes with a length of 273cm average weight, about 5-6kilo.
Some evenings and nights we took the car and drove around to look for owls, moose and other animals and birds. Whats nice in northern Sweden is that it never gets dark, the night is almost as light as day.
So therefore you can easily take photos through the night which is good for most animals move at night. We found three different owls places, but unfortunately we managed  never get really close as we wanted to take some nice pictures. The owls that we found was a short-eared owl, and they can be seen chasing around noon as well. Then it was time for more fishing and this time it was my brother's favorite place, that place can really deliver large pike and there is a lot of them also and they are Large. We managed both within a half hour break our personal best, me with a fine pike of 10.4 kg and my brother of an even larger at 11.1 kg. In sweden we say 10kg pike is the Magic limit for pike.  so it was really successful. Another day we went to Jokkfall which is located about 100km north of  Kalix, the place is famous for its salmon fishing and the fish ladder that guides the salmon past the big waterfall.  In the ladder u can see big salmons swim in.  Without the ladder the salmon cant get upp jokkfallet because it is too steep approximately 15m in height of fall and salmon are unable to swim up there. In the Kalix river it usually pass about 6000 salmon if it is a good year. I Read the board where they record all fish that passes the ladder and it had only passed 51 salmon so far. That was some me and my brother had done that week, and about 5 weeks Iam going back there but this time we will go fishing for big grayling, trout, and char in finnmarksvidda (Norway).

Click on image to enlarge it!

The moose is loose

Listening

Short-eared owl

short-eared owl

Little brothers big pike 11,1kg

My big pike pb 10,4kg :)

Little gull/dvärgmås

Little gull

Jokkfallet

Jokkfallet under the bridge

Jokkfallet from the bridge

From the bridge

From the bridge

Jokkfallet

Arctic Tern

Goosander/Storskrake (female)

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Back to Redmires Reservoirs

Yesterday, I was again to Redmires, but now a bit later in the day have not been there in the middle of the day, so I wanted to check what kind of activity there is at this time. I notices immediately that there are less birds on the move, maybe just because they seem to be evening / morning active. Found a Kestrel who hunted small birds but did  not get a good picture of it. Walked around there for 5 hours and tried to find something nice to shoot, well found some interesting subjects. But today I had to use a converter for the great zoom, which gave me 800mm on that lens. But unfortunately, you lose quite a lot of sharpness, light, and it becomes difficult to use auto focus when it just works on the central point. But it may be worth at times when you want to get close to birds that are too far away with the 400mm which I would otherwise have. Next week I will be up in Kalix (Sweden), and hopefully me and my brother that I will be visiting finds a lot of beautiful birds to photograph. We will also fish for the famous Kalix River "crocodiles" they who visit the blog will see what I mean because I will be blogging about fishing as well. See you soon ...

Meadow pipit

Sky Lark not a good picture but my first on this bird



Tufted Duck

Tufted Duck Female and Male

Little ringed plower

Little ringed plower