The Red Kite

Whilst we were still in England on holiday we decided to go to Wales, to the Red Kite feeding station at Gigrin Farm where these beautiful birds are fed once a day.

 

It was a fantastic day out, watching these beautiful birds so if you are ever in the area make sure you go to this feeding station as it is well worth the trip. You certainly won't regret it if you are a keen bird watcher!

Red Kite



Red Kite

Red Kite

Despite being large birds, Red Kites are neither particulary strong, nor aggresive. When hunting live prey, a low gliding flight is employed so that the Kite can search for small movements on the ground, and then it quickly grasps the creature in its talons.



Red Kite

Red Kite



Red Kite

It is however, a predator in that it takes a wide variety of live prey ranging from earthworms to small mammals, amphibians and birds.

Red Kites

Red Kite

Red KIte

Common Buzzard

Red Kite ,Common Buzzard and Ravens

A Kite has excellent eye sight and they use this when over flying the countryside in search of food.

An especially good hunting ground for the Red Kite, and a host of other predators, is the land between the valley bottom and lower slopes, and open hill tops. Here there is often bracken, gorse and heather sheltering great numbers of rabbits, voles, moles, and field mice.

Red Kite

Common Buzzard

Red Kite

Red Kite



Red Kite

Spectacular day overall, very memorable.

We hope you enjoyed these photos, so until our next outing... Goodbye for now!

Garden Feeders

Recently, we went on a family holiday to a rural part of England so for this particular post we have a few photographs of some of the birds that came in to the garden to make the most of the feeders set out specifically for them.

 

With winter setting in, it is a great help for the birds to get some food on a regular occurence. It is also a good chance for us to see these little birds a lot closer than we normally would whilst we are out bird watching with our scopes, etc.

Here are just a few of the photos that we managed to take:



Robin

Blue Tit

Chaffinch

Nuthatch

Coal Tit and Blue Tit



Great Spotted Woodpecker

Coal Tit

Dunnock

Coal Tit

Nuthatch

Blue Tit

Robin
 

We hope that you enjoyed these 'up close' photos of these lovely birds!

Pelagic Seabirds

For our next outing we decided to do something completely different so we went ahead and booked a sea birdwatching trip. We were told we would be going out close to the continental shelf so basically, this is about eight miles out to sea. We headed straight out and in just ten minutes time we saw a few Corys, some Gannets, Herring Gulls, and Lesser Black Backed Gulls.

Lesser Black-backed Gull



Juvenile Gannet

After a while we were informed that we would be following a fishing trawler. This was for obvious reasons, as the sea birds would be following the trawler for easy pickings and consequently, we would be able to get a little closer to observe them and be able to take better photographs.

 



Trawler

Great Shearwater

Storm Petrel



Immature Gannet



Following the trawler was a fantastic idea as we got to see loads of different birds; Shearwaters, Gannets, Gulls, Great Skuas and Pomarine Skua, and also several Storm Petrels, which were not easy  for us to spot as they are tiny birds. We managed to identify five different Shearwaters overall.

 

Another shot of the Trawler

Sooty Shearwater

Lesser Black-backed Gull



Balearic Shearwater



Great Shearwater

We were fortunate enough to observe some Gannets that were diving for fish just a few metres away from our boat, and then we saw a Great Shearwater skimming the water and plunging for fish.

 



Great Shearwater

Balearic Shearwater

Great Shearwater

Corys Shearwater

The Great Skuas were harrasing and chasing away any birds that would pick up morsels
of food, and they wouldn't give up until the food was dropped!



Great Skua

Sooty Shearwater

Corys Shearwater

We spent three hours out in the boat observing all these wonderful birds, and it was a fantastic moment for us. Bye for now!