Photographed on a Peak District grouse moor this week – but who knows how that large gap in the wing feathers on the left wing came about?
Category: THE PHOTOGRAPHS: by Tim Melling, Oscar Dewhurst, Paul Leyland, Guy Shorrock, Brian Leecey
Tim Melling – Purple Sandpiper
Tim writes: Spurn peninsula in East Yorkshire has been breached by the sea so the point is now an island at high tide. As I walked back along the breach in late September I spotted just a single wader on the beach, which was this Purple Sandpiper. I usually expect to see this species on…
Tim Melling – What do Spotted Flycatchers eat?
Tim writes: while photographing Ring Ouzels in the Crowden Valley I was distracted by the sound of this Spotted Flycatcher snapping its beak as it tried to catch an insect. Now you can guess what Flycatchers eat as the clue is in the name, and even its scientific name Muscicapa means flycatching. So I had…
Tim Melling – Jack Snipe
Tim writes: here is my best Jack Snipe photograph to date. I spotted this one sat right in the open and it froze completely while I watched it for about 20 minutes. I crept as close as I dared then squatted to get a low camera angle and took a series of shots. I then…
Gordon Yates – Jack Snipe
Gordon Yates is a wildlife photographer and many of his superb images of Hen Harriers have graced these pages over the years. He sent me this image of a Jack Snipe in the snow and said that it was the first he’d ever managed to photograph. It’s rare to see the bird this well. Jack…
Tim Melling – Red Grouse in the snow
Tim writes: Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus) usually defend a territory throughout winter, in which the pair will breed in spring. Birds that haven’t managed to find a territory form a nomadic flock and will take up any vacancies if any territory-holders die. But over the last few days I have noticed that all the usual…
Tim Melling – Little Grebe eating a Bullhead
Tim writes: I used to catch Bullheads (Cottus gobio) in a small stream near my home as a child, but I haven’t seen one for maybe 50 years. That is until two days ago when I watched this Little Grebe emerge from the water with one. These fish are also known as Miller’s Thumb and…
Tim Melling – Great White Egret
Tim writes: the 8th October started well for me as almost unbelievably this was the second species of bird I saw thiat morning after Moorhen. Numbers three and four were Little Egret and Jack Snipe. The Great White Egret flew into the Canal Scrape at Spurn at 7:10 that morning. When I started birdwatching Great…
Tim Melling – Knot
Tim writes: this was a flock of Knot at high tide at Spurn in East Yorkshire taken in early October. I say Knot, though if you look really carefully there are at least eight Dunlin among them. Most of the Knot are in grey winter plumage but a few of them have orange mottling, remnants…
Guy Shorrock – Antipodean Albatross
Guy writes: as a young boy interested in birds, albatrosses, being birds mainly of the southern hemisphere, always had something of a mystical status to me. From school, I remember an English Literature lesson covering the ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Coleridge. This lengthy poem revolves around the killing of an albatross…