Flamingo Land

Flamingo Land

27/12/2015

Flamingo Land (Zoo), Malton, North Yorkshire

A day out with eh family at the zoo during the Christmas break. Not wildlife in every sense of the word, but cracking animals to take photographs of!!!

Black-necked Grebe Fantastic

Black-necked Grebe Fantastic

November to December 2015

Scarborough Harbour, North Yorkshire

 

Amazing sights in Scarborough Harbour this Autumn with, not 1,2 or 3, but up to 5 Black-necked grebes around at any one time.

 

Though not in the wonderful summer plumage still a fabulous bird to see so close up.

I wonder how long they will be around.

I look forward to some decent weekend weather to photograph these birds a little more, but it never seems to happen!!!

 

 



Little Auks

Little Auks

22/11/2015

Scarborough Harbour, North Yorkshire

After only ever seeing one Little Auk very briefly last year and at a fair distant what a great sight it was to see a number all in one day, with the first landing on the rock armour on the Marine Drive, the next 2 off the outer harbour wall and then 1 or 2 in the harbour its self, brilliant!!! (though I missed out on 7 all at once and a Black Throated Diver, as I left as usual a few minutes to early!!! but was drenched by a hail storm, see the picture of the Little Auk in the hail storm!!!)

Little Auk in a bad hail storm, I was stood on the end of the harbour with a few grand of camera gear in hand, is not a great idea!!!

 

 

A little bit of fun was when one of the Little Auks came to close for the 'big lens boys' to photograph , they could have picked it out of the water with their hands. Sometimes we just have to sit, look and admire the wildlife, you never know what its going to do!!!

 

Squirrelling Around

Squirrelling Around

25/10/2015

Near Hawes, North Yorkshire

A lovely day, if not a little dark, due to the deepest darkest conifer forest surroundings, at a special place I know near Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales where the odd Red Squirrel hang out!!

A little bonus, though again very dark, were a few Goldcrest flitting around the edges of the conifers feeding quite high up. A bird that never sits still!!!

Goldcrests

 

Red Squirrels

Staithes

Staithes

27/09/2015

Staithes, North Yorkshire

Wonderful day out on Sunday with Adele to Staithes, which is a lovely picturesque old fishing port set at the side of the North York Moors (where the moors meets the sea).

A good couple of hours was spent rock pooling as the tide was out and watching Juvenile Gannets trying to fish, along with a few Guillemots, the odd Fulmar, a number of Cormorants and a group of very confiding Turnstones feasting on the waters edge presumably after their long journey from the far north of the planet.

Around the harbour there were a number of various coloured lobster sculptures, to which purpose they were there, we did not find out, all the same they were grand structures.

One upsetting tale we heard from a local in the pub, when we got nattering to him, was that all the shops,other than tourist tat shops and cafes in the bottom of the village were to close as there were no locals left due to nearly all the houses being holiday rents. This a really sad tale of these types of local communities being split up, we really, as a nation, ought not let our traditions and local crafts and trades disappear.

Cracking lunch at the 'Cod and Lobster' right on the harbour side with a window seat to enable us watch a few of the remaining cobbles and fishing boats come and go with sadly small catches.