Cuties

Arguably the most endearing bird in the UK. Black Guillemot as seen on our trip to Mull in May this year. Not only do they look quite striking but they sound cute too as they whistle to one another.

Small packages and good things

A visit to North Lancashire, the red rose county, saw us looking at some unimaginably beautiful orchids. Among them were Lady’s Slippers. Good things come in small packages.

Minotaur

On tour last week I was surprised to see a Minotaur Beetle crossing our path up on the Heath. Normally only active at night these are quite impressive insects with three horns emerging from the pronotum. Not having my macro lens with me I had to photograph it with the 100 to 400mm lens I had fitted. With a little readjustment it more or less gave a decent result.

Fallow

Herd animals are always difficult to photograph. They never look the same way! This little group of Fallow Deer sheltering from early spring sunshine and framed by the tree caught my attention.

 

Skimming

I’ve seen African, Indian and Black Skimmers, the American version, previously; but never managed to get a photo of one skimming.

To explain. A skimmer is a species of bird. In fact there are just three different types in the world occupying areas around water in India, America and Africa. They are somewhat tern like in their appearance but much larger and their lower mandible is extended beyond the upper, to give them a very odd appearance. This adaptation enables the bird to fly along with it’s lower mandible ‘trailing’ in water and when it touches a fish it snaps it up and swallows the meal. Cool.

We were watching out over the estuary of the Maipo in Chile. There was a distant flock of several hundred skimmers mixed with gulls towards the other side of the river some one kilometre distant . However a  small flock of eight individuals were much closer and they were mobile. Eventually they started to skim right in front of us. A superb bit of evolution.

Dusk Lover

Chinese Water Deer are one of those animals that doesn’t like daylight. It’s not until dusk starts to creep into the equation that it start to come alive. I saw this one as I was walking back to the car last week. The day had been unusually mild. It had obviously been laid among the sedges absorbing the warmth from the winter sun. As the shadows got longer it was starting to cool. The deer stood up and shook itself before slipping away behind the vegetation again.

Let me take this opportunity to wish all Letter from Norfolk readers a very Merry Christmas and remind you all we’ve turned a corner …the days are now getting longer!

Not yet….

I’ve spent quite a while on the coast this week. You could easily find me looking wistfully out to sea. Why? Well, it’s big fauna time. The beginning of November has for the past few years been the period when large whales have occurred off Norfolk; particularly ‘Humpy’ our returning Humpback. Unfortunately, not this year. Or at least, not so far.  Unfortunately there are no large flocks of feeding gannets or divers offshore either which gives a clue as to why the whales have not arrived. There are no fish! The Herring don’t appear to have arrived here as yet. So if there’s no food on the table why come to the party! This is endorsed by the fishermen locally who tell me ‘there’s just nothing doing’.

Given the year has been a bit ‘topsy-turvy’ weather wise and autumn has not really bitten us as yet there may still be time for something to happen. I’ll keep on looking. In the meantime here’s a photo I took this summer in Canada of four humpbacks together.

Humpbacks in the mist.