Happy Easter

Time Flies

It's been some time since the last blog post and it may look like nothing has been happening. That's not true of course, it's just an indication that if you are going to blog, time has to be set aside from the doing, to enable the blogging.
On top of this is a need to do things that are worth blogging anyway and the reality is the mundane day-to-day living isn't terribly interesting. Add in a couple of wildlife shoots where the wildlife hasn't played the game and a near three week break soon happens.
With the weather set fair for the first part of the Easter weekend, we decided to try our luck with what Portland had to offer. I've never found the island to be a warm place, I've even felt cold there on a sunny July day in the past, but Good Friday 2014 has been different. We spent a full seven hours on the cliffs between Church Ope Cove and Portland Bill and were warm the whole time.
There was plenty to occupy us as well, with plenty of Wheatear and Pied Wagtails about, not to mention Stonechat and the lovely sound of the numerous Skylarks. Highlight though was at the end of the day when we spotted a Peregrine Falcon beside Cheyne Weares Look Out.
I was also privileged to see the Weymouth lifeboat on a shout for the first time. A boyhood fascination with the lifeboat was born out of living next door to a crewman and many's the time I have watched them launch from the Nothe Parade boathouse. I had a VHF radio that would give me Channel 16 so that I could hear where they were going and even sometimes the names of the crew being passed to the Coastguards. But my lack of sea legs prevented me from trying to do anything to join the crew.
So after nearly 50 years, to see the boat actually underway on a job was quite thrilling and I just had to get the shot I've posted here. A while later I learned they had been on their way to rescue a broken down fishing boat from a point 29 miles south west of Portland Bill. It was a nice day for it and maybe one that I could have coped with, without the need for the Kwells!

Anglesey Weekend

I suppose living in Dorset ought to make capturing a Red Squirrel image fairly easy. A trip to Brownsea Island should be all it needs and if that fails we can always fall back on a trip over to the Isle of Wight without too much difficulty.
So why is it that a trip to Anglesey was planned with the 600 mile + trip that entailed? The truth is that research suggested it was the closest place that we could be guaranteed a sighting and with it a good shooting opportunity. Add to that the fact that the sat nav was going to take us right past Gigrin Farm at Red Kite feeding time and the answer becomes apparent. A trip to Brownsea last year had also yielded nothing, apart from the information that you have to carefully time a visit for Red Squirrel sightings.
Naturally with a distance such as that to cover, it had to be a full weekend jaunt and that resulted in another 170 miles on the clock. But all looked to be set for a good weekend with fine dry weather forecast for the area.
Setting off on Friday morning was delayed by torrential rain which made loading the car take a lot longer than normal. We were into Wales before the rain really stopped, but it was dry as we reached Gigrin and with 15 minutes to go to feeding time we were set up. There were a good number of birds, although not as many as our last visit in the Autumn. It was overcast, but part-way through the feeding there was a fleeting glimpse of sunshine during which I made this image. Almost as soon as the shoot ended, the rain returned and stayed with us for the remainder of the drive to our base in Porthmadog.
Saturday dawned wet and not very promising for our first Red Squirrel site on Anglesey. The rain stopped shortly after we arrived and one of the locals kindly pointed out a Squirrel atop a tree. Within minutes he was down the tree, on the far side to where we were standing, into the undergrowth and gone. We spent the rest of the day on the local area, but never saw another Squirrel.
Sunday morning was much better weather-wise and we set off back to Anglesey to another site. This proved to be even worse than Saturday and after a fruitless search, with much stopping, looking and listening we decided to cut our losses and head for RSPB South Stack at Holyhead. That gave us the opportunity to have some lunch and make some images of a Peregrine Falcon perched on the cliff face. The plan then was to head back South to RSPB Valley Wetlands, adjacent to RAF Valley and then return to the squirrel site from Saturday. In actual fact, Valley was much like Radipole Lake and Lodmoor have been recently, quiet with just the usual suspects about. So we set off for the final chance to see a Squirrel and as soon as we entered the car park, I spotted one feeding. We then spent a couple of hours until it was nearly dark watching and waiting and were rewarded with sightings of what I believe to be at least four different squirrels. We headed off for dinner and back to base, happy that we had at last seen what we wanted.
Monday was travelling home day and the forecast was for rain gradually moving north westwards. We calculated that it was likely to be wet at Gigrin, but thought we may have a chance of more Red Kites at the Nant Yr Arian feeding station. Unfortunately, the felling of Larch trees there to control the spread of Phytophthora ramorum, a fatal fungus, has left the site decimated. The number of Kites has consequently reduced, but still provide a spectacle. Unfortunately, our weather calculations proved to be incorrect as the rain arrived at the same time as the birds' meat, so although we made a few images, there was nothing worth showing.
And so our weekend came to a close, with just a four hour drive back to Dorset. All told a sometimes frustrating weekend, but a pleasurable one nonetheless, learning valuable lessons for the future. Next stop Brownsea or the Isle of Wight.