Pretty Flamingo

 Today I am following up yesterday's flaming excellent abstract with some more conventional shots of the flamingos at the zoo.

I have seen flamingos flying in the south of France but never had an opportunity to photograph them in the wild. So to get some shots I had to see them in the zoo. They are currently in the breeding season, in fact several birds could be seen sitting on eggs ( I wont say on nests because they actually create a mound of earth with a rim around the top and lay their egg on top). In previous years the zoo  staff have removed the eggs and replaced them with wooden replica eggs to avoid the risk of predation while the actual eggs are placed in incubators where they could hatch safely. However this year for the first time, since the flock is housed in a new and spectacular aviary, the eggs have been left with the parent birds and will be allowed to hatch naturally. Perhaps I will go back in a few weeks to see the new chicks, that would be quite something.

The colours of the birds' plumage at the moment is quite stunning, so vibrant and eye catching.

Zoo Abstract

 I thought I would go for something a little abstract for today. It probably is not at all obvious what this is so I will explain.

This is a close up of a flamingo reflected in a pool, to further add to the abstract effect it has been rotated 90 degrees.

I thought it was a bit of fun to play around with this image.

I went to the zoo...

 ... and one of the first things I photographed was this:

So it may seem strange to pay for entry to a zoo and then photograph a bird that i could photograph almost anywhere else however when an opportunity arises it is important to take it.

I actually really like Jackdaws, I think they are a very handsome bird, they are alert and curious too. Their striking blue eyes really stand out against their glossy plumage.

It was nice towards the end of my visit to also see the pair of birds on a branch, I think the male was definitely trying to impress his mate, but she was playing it very cool.

Mandrill... and why edit!

It has been quite some time since I visited the zoo so it was really lovely to go along recently for my grandson's very first zoo trip. I didn't take nearly as many photos as I normally might have done but I did manage to get a few along the way while listening to my grandsons efforts to mimic different animal sounds.

In the past it has been almost impossible to get a decent shot of the mandrills as they have been behind glass, but since my last visit a number of the animals have been moved to different enclosures and this meant that the mandrills were outdoors and more easy to see. However these images are a perfect example of why editing photos is often necessary. They were all shot using a high ISO (1250), given that the beast was hiding in the shade of the shrubs and trees, but with a relatively fast shutter speed (1/600sec) to freeze the action as the Mandrill was pacing about. This combination was intended to keep noise to a minimum and produce a clear image. The fifth image in this selection is unedited to show that without some essential tweaks the picture would be pretty useless. If I had used a higher ISO or a slower shutter speed there would have been too much grain and blur so again the images would have been useless. Editing software however allows those problems to be solved, showing off this magnificent creature to stunning effect which would otherwise not have been possible. 
 

Atlantic Puffins

 Here are shots of three different birds from my recent trip to Skomer. I will take a break from posting pictures of the birdlife on the island and go onto other subjects, so I wanted to make this post special with some really nice shots. I have already written about some puffin related facts in previous posts so I won't repeat that here, instead I will just let the pictures do the talking. These are such stunning, beautiful birds and it was a real privilege to photograph them.

Stonechat

 For today I am taking a break from the puffin and other seabird shots and have shared a few images of male and female stonechats. I photographed these on Wooltack Point while waiting for the crossing to Skomer. There were lots of songbirds flying about and singing loudly but most were very difficult to spot let alone photograph. With a bit of patience however I managed to get these shots and I really like the colours with the gorse in full bloom as a backdrop. It is very likely that I was close to the nest in these shots because they commonly nest in gorse, and why not? with its sharp thorns it provides a natural protective barrier to would be predators. They lay 5 or 6 eggs and will generally have 2 or 3 broods in a nesting season. That seems like a lot of work for such little birds.

Guillemot

 This is a Guillemot, a member of the auk family and one of the most common seabirds to nest around our shores, however this was the only pair of the birds that I could photograph on Skomer, the rest were nesting too far away.

As with the puffins the male and female birds spend the winter apart, meeting up in the breeding season when they lay one egg on a rocky ledge. They don't make a nest but as in this shot they clear the space of any stones or debris that might be in the way.

When the egg hatches both parents will attend to the chick for the first three weeks or so after which the chick will go to the water where it is looked after exclusively by the male parent who will feed it and train it for the next 12 weeks. |t does not fly until it is 8 - 10 weeks old 

Razorbill

 As well as Puffins on Skomer there is a large population of Razorbills, although as they nest of cliffs and rocky outcrops it is more difficult to get close up photos.

Fortunately these birds were nesting close to the pathway that leads down the cliff to the landing stage and so I was able to get a few shots.

Although they lack the brightly coloured bills of the puffin they are stunning birds. I was really pleased to get a shot of the two birds grooming each other. It seems like such a tender moment.

Fly Past

 Every single photographer I saw and spoke to on my trip to Skomer was after a shot of a puffin coming into land; shoulders back, feet forward and wings outstretched to achieve a stable landing, and after that it was a shot of the birds in flight. As one guy said to me "the success rate is less than 0.5% but we keep on trying". He was not wrong, it is so hard to get a good shot of these birds in flight. They are small and super fast and for me it didn't help that I had the shutter speed too slow for the first few attempts. The first three shots above were shot at 1/640 sec which was clearly too slow to get a clear image, and even the last shot at 1/2000 sec is not as sharp as I would like. The problem is tracking such a small bird at speed, maintaining focus and keeping camera shake to a minimum. Perhaps the guys with gimbals on their tripods had better luck but despite the shortcomings I think that for these hand held shots I did OK. 

Living on the Edge

 I don't think I can say much about these shots, other than it was so exciting to be able to get close to these beautiful creatures. They really are such special birds. I am always amazed at how hardy they are given how small they are and the life they lead, 8 months out at sea, 4 months on a rocky island in a burrow underground.

In a few weeks when their eggs hatch these birds will be on a constant round of fishing and feeding the little pufflings, who when they have fledged effectively just hurl themselves off the cliff into the air and they too will very soon head off out into the wild ocean.

A Cute Couple

 

I still have some other great pictures from my trip to share but I couldn't wait to get to the puffin pics and so I have jumped right in with this cute little couple.

There are over 42,000 pairs of puffins on Skomer at this time of year. At the moment many of them are inside their burrows sitting on eggs or out on the water feeding so while I got to see lots of birds there were not as many on display as at other times of the breeding season. In fact this was the only pair I saw together the whole time I was on the island. It was so cool to catch them preening each other and making gentle "growling" sounds before one went back underground to their egg. I figured it was a changing of the guard situation, perhaps one is relaying information about the best fishing spots while the other is giving an update on the egg.

Did you know that the average lifespan for a puffin is 30 years but the oldest recorded age is 41 years although it is thought likely that birds could live longer than that it is just that the bands used to tag the birds don't last as long as the birds do. They reach maturity and start breeding from 5 - 6 years old and remain with their mate for the rest of their lives. Outside of the breeding season they spend about 8 months apart out at sea, they return to the same nesting sites each spring and somehow from among the thousand of other birds they manage to find each other to raise the next generation of their family.

A Heck of a View

A few more from my trip to Pembrokeshire and Skomer. No doubt you you will be excited to see some shots of Puffins, after all that was the reason I went to Skomer in the first place. I have chosen to share some more shots of the spectacular sunset but if it is puffins you want I have included a little teaser below, just keep scrolling...

The pictures above were taken from Woolpack point, the sky genuinely was that gorgeous golden glow which belies how chilly it actually was with the wind coming right off the sea. It was nice to be up on the point on my own for a little while but I was soon joined by a trio of guys who were, like me there to enjoy the sunset at the end of a wonderful day. I think the addition of the three figures in the first two shots really adds something to the scene and I really like the solo guy silhouetted in the third shot. I also like the impact of the single seabird in the fourth image.

Before you scroll down to the final image I should warn you that it is not going to be what you expect. It is not a "cute" shot of a puffin but is instead an example of how timing is everything in getting the shot and is a good capture, even if it makes you groan.

 I had taken one shot of this bird close to the edge of the cliff and as it started to hunker down I thought it might be about to take to the air and I had tried several times to get pictures of these birds in flight. However instead of taking to the air it was heading back underground to its burrow, presumably to sit on its nest and as it did so it jettisoned its load quite spectacularly.