View allAll Photos Tagged SpringWatch!
Fulmar in flight at Bempton Cliffs.
Although they are gull-like, Fulmars are "tubenose" (having large, raised nasal tubes), more closely related to albatrosses.
Many thanks to all who take the time to view, comment or fav my images.
Hello everyone...Ive been that busy...and taking photos of others had taken priority. I took this today, because;-
1) I love the thought of Spring approaching and
2) Someone (missing my uploads) asked me to show my face!!
Please see Local Birds & Wildlife 2017 set www.flickr.com/photos/wendycoops224/albums/72157677498251730
A few from the archives.. seem to have a lot of archives!!
Anyway, these are a throwback to our Suffolk trip in April...
Please see Suffolk April 2017 album. www.flickr.com/photos/wendycoops224/albums/72157682818547896
This shot whilst not as good as those I would take later further down the lane, has a lovely soft feel created by the first rays of a new day.
On reviewing my pics from last week, I realised I had actually filmed both the upper barn owls.
These two shots were from my first encounter of the day. He flew off down the lane, having watched me for a few minutes, as I crouched down by a farm gate.
When I came across his partner a few minutes later, I incorrectly assumed they were the same bird.
Barn owl (Tyto alba)
Yorkshire Dales - Upper Barn male
Many thanks to all those who take the time to comment on my photos. It is truly appreciated.
2862
This is the nest that has been lovingly built in the Laundry Outhouse at our farm... A very busy place but mum has raised four beautiful chicks in there despite the comings and goings!
And maybe one of these as well...
Please see Suffolk April 2017 album. www.flickr.com/photos/wendycoops224/albums/72157682818547896
OH and there's a blog about the afternoon this was taken on...
www.flyladyphotographybywendycooper.co.uk/article/postcar...
'Rare visitors to West Yorkshire'.
Night Herons are rare visitors to West Yorkshire...two arrived with us here in West Yorkshire in early April 2023. This is a flight capture of Night Heron #1 flying out to begin its evening of feeding after spending most of its day in the trees roosting and preening. In the breeding season Night Herons have two long white plumes on their head as can be seen in this flight image. The Black-crowned Night Heron is 23-28 inches tall (71 CM) and has a wingspan of almost four feet (1.2 mtrs)
As its name suggests, 'Night Herons' become active in the late evening, it hunts for food at dusk and the early morning. It stands and waits for prey like frogs and fish to pass by and them snatches them up with its bill. It sometimes raids the nests of other herons and birds and steals the chicks. It also eats amphibians, crustaceans, insects and small mammals.
Let's hope Night Herons settle here in Yorkshire and start to breed along with our other Heron family birds that are now resident here...Our three Egrets Great White, Little, Cattle and the Little Bittern.
The Black-crowned Night-Heron, or Black-capped Night-Heron, commonly shortened to just Night Heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, including parts of Europe, Asia, and North and South America.
Black-crowned Night-Heron Notes and Information:
Black-crowned Night-Herons are stocky birds compared to many of their long-limbed heron relatives. They’re most active at night or at dusk, when you may see their ghostly forms flapping out from daytime roosts to forage in wetlands. In the light of day adults are striking in gray-and-black plumage and long white head plumes. These social birds breed in colonies of stick nests usually built over water. They live in fresh, salt, and brackish wetlands and are the most widespread heron in the world.
Black-crowned Night-Herons are common in wetlands across North America—you just may have to look a little harder than you do for most Herons. True to their name, these birds do most of their feeding at night and spend much of the day hunched among leaves and branches at the water’s edge. Evening and dusk are good times to look for these rather stout, short-necked herons flying out to foraging grounds.
Interesting facts...
Scientists find it easy, if a bit smelly and messy, to study the diet of young Black-crowned Night-Herons—the nestlings often disgorge their stomach contents when approached.
Black-crowned Night Heron nest in groups that often include other species, including herons, egrets, and ibises.
A breeding Black-crowned Night-Heron will brood any chick that is placed in its nest. The herons apparently don’t distinguish between their own offspring and nestlings from other parents.
Young Black-crowned Night-Herons leave the nest at the age of 1 month but cannot fly until they are 6 weeks old. They move through the vegetation on foot, joining up in foraging flocks at night.
The familiar evening sight and sound of the Black-crowned Night-Heron was captured in this description from Arthur Bent’s Life Histories of North American Marsh Birds: “How often, in the gathering dusk of evening, have we heard its loud, choking squawk and, looking up, have seen its stocky form, dimly outlined against the gray sky and propelled by steady wing beats, as it wings its way high in the air toward its evening feeding place in some distant pond or marsh!”
The oldest Black-crowned Night-Heron on record was a female who was at least 21 years, 5 months old when she was found in California in 2012. She was banded there in 1992 Living with Birds notes.
I was watching Springwatch this evening and got a feeling of deja vu when I saw the Snipe photo on the back of their cue cards, and on the screen at the back of Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan. I don't mind the BBC using my photograph but it would have been nice to have been credited.
I took the photograph in Upper Teesdale four years ago.