yellow belly land

christmas and a week off work!

after todays results i think the 400L 5.6 is a keeper.

DONNA NOOK

what a place...........vast and bleak...................awesome................and you can see spurn

redshank

donna nook

willow tit

far ings

magpie's

dont do sign's

i looked for god

but god wasnt there

well all in all a good day

lapland bunting 1

snow bunting 23

merlin 1

willow tit 1

brent geese 500+

for more photos take a look at my more sensible website DJPREST PHOTOGRAPHY

ice,dog shit and pugneys

awake at 3am and bored

interest in porn can only last so long,so at 930 i headed to pugneys to take a look at the couple of rare ducks.

god calder wetlands is a bleak place the wind was biting,its also full of dog shit and ice which made the walk rather more hazardous............slip or step in shit.

having found the place to see the ferruginous duck,i decided i wasnt worth bothering with due to looking into the sun .

having given up on the fudge duck i searched for my most favourite duck RING-NECKED DUCK.i dont how many ive seen but i never tire of seeing these.

ring necked duck

height order left to right

as it was my first twitch since september it made me realise how much i hate the uneducated all the gear birders.

a winters tale

set off this morning early to go christmas shopping..........6'' of snow

walked into town.................loads of birds about

dipper 3

grey wagtail 6

pied wagtail 9 including 1 sheltering in a shop front

bullfinch 4

lapwing 18

common gull 5

fieldfare 78

redwing 63

jay 8

song thrush 2

mistle thrush

sainsburys

yesterday

tree sparrows and a cheeky rat

yes Bubwith again but then you gotta love tree sparrows! and cheeky rats.

the light was not the best but managed some decent photos? still getting used to the 400mm but the 50D handles noise quite well,these were taken at iso 800 apart from some editing in CS4 and have not been through neat image.

testing the new 400 f5.6 L

spent a few hours this morning at Bubwith trying out the new 400mm f5.6,and im quite impressed. the lack of 'is' is a pain but the sharpness of it is a plus.

mute swan

sparrowhawk

tree sparrow
iso 1600 on a 50d

changes and new gear :)

firstly due to the amount of spam posted in the comments recentley i have made the blog availble for only other bloggers to comment,which is a dissapointment as even the anon comments are good,but its my own fault!

anyway just got a new lens the canon ef 400mm f5.6 as an upgrade to the 100-400mm

also just got an old canon T90 manual film camera aka 'the tank' which im going to use for my halifax photos.........when the film arrives

sunday rain and a bit of urban birding

a very wet and windy sunday in the grimest town.spent about 4 hours wandering round the town........
not alot about but was quite pleased with

grey heron 3
kingfisher 2
grey wagtail 2
jay 1
coal tit 1
long tailed tit 50+
redwing 4

god im bored

a pure sheer lack of motivation this last month! why i dont know? but i need to back into the field.
im so bored at the moment i could not even be arsed getting off the sofa to go for the eastern crowned warbler!!!! which was the one bird i only ever wanted to see!

this is yorkshire
we do what we want

its been a while.........................!

well over a month since the last update!
a new place of work means i cannot get to the 'with' after work
after visiting the parents this morning,i headed to spurn armed with freshly made sausage rolls which were all eaten whilst stuck behind the slowest fucking driver in the world!

spurn was full of fucking numpty birdwatchers not what i like but he ho! even a coach trip from huddersfield but i swerved them lot! though met up with a few decent birders mr cunnimgham and mr hewitt were as always friendly and chatty.
spent most of my time along the long bank which gets very few birders apart from the ones that know!
spent the last few hours enjoying the woodchat shrike,is it me or are birds like this more attractive in juv/1st winter plumage? loads of subtle colours and detail................i ove em!

woodchat shrike
sammys point

golden ringed dragonfly 'the with'

well its been a while but the weather has been so fucking awful,fuck all about bird wise just a few meadow pipits,canada goose and 3 carrion crows!!
while walking along the north drain i noticed a dragonfly hawking low and behold my first golden ringed dragonfly! and it would appear to the 1st one locally.

golden ringed dragonfly
the with

bempton sunday

always a good place to go for photography

kittiwake

gannet

puffin

wuthering heights

set off in the pouring rain from walshaw dean towards top withens farm near haworth. a very long time since i went there.
along the way despite the rain a few red grouse were seen along with grey wagtail,curlew and a couple of oystercatchers.
birding was not my main aim today as i wanted to see the supposed location of 'wuthering heights' the novel by emily bronte.approaching from withens clough is a bit of a let down as the site does not look as bleak as the title suggests cos you can see all of bradford and leeds in the distance!
to be honest the farm is a bit of a let down as it seems quite well looked after! it still has door on and a bit of a roof!but still they come to see the site.

even the signs are in
japanese!!!

top withens

even the bronte society do not even recognise the farm as the location.


so where is wuthering heights?

the most likely location is high sunderland hall at horley green,halifax,though long since demolished(1950's)the description matches,and emily was working as a teacher at law hill school southowram when she wrote the novel.its a shame the hall was ripped down.

high sunderland hall