My wildlife photo thread

I had an interesting close encounter with a beautiful little egret yesterday, and while watching and catching some decent pictures was satisfying in itself, I thought it'd be nice to share them here, too. And then I thought, why not start an ongoing thread, so each time I see something exciting and manage to get a nice enough picture I can post it, and maybe in between I'll add to the thread with some of my older wildlife photos, too. Otherwise, they just sit in folders on my laptop - at least if I put the best shots here I'm doing a bit more with them!

I'd say I'm an enthusiastic photographer, rather than a keen or technically good one; I'm not the hobbyist type who's invested a lot in equipment, and I don't make special photography trips, I just happen to spend time in a lot of places with lovely landscapes, woods, the coast, gardens - and that's where I see wild creatures. And it's just a point-and-shoot digital bridge camera, not an SLR with specialist lenses and magic shutter speeds like proper wildlife photographers, so don't expect too much

So here's the first batch, yesterday's egret. We've had them in this country for a long while now, they've become an everyday beauty rather than a rare sighting, but this is the first time I've got up close, and taken anything but distant, blurred photographs.

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It was fascinating watching it hunt, using careful forward sweeps of each leg in turn to stir the mud, then catching anything that moved.

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Stirring with one foot

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Snapping round toward something which caught it's attention

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Swallowing the prey

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And looking very beautiful, too!

Lovely egret

Wondeful pictures!

Great photos-they are becoming increasingly common birds in the Uk now.Living near the coast I see them quite a lot.

What a beautyful, elegant, wonderful bird !!!

And your photoes are fantastic !!
Thankyou very much for sharing

That's an excellent idea and I really love your photos. It is a pity we can't say what a great egret because it is a little one, right? There's also the intermediate, I wished people was more efficient giving names to these birds.

A couple of days ago, when we had a beautiful clear-sky sunny afternoon, I went to the coast. I don't like the popular end of the beach here, where there's arcades and shops and 'entertainment' - my entertainment is to walk the opposite way, away from all signs of human development, and enjoy the nature, and the geology, and the sunsets over the sea.

I spotted a cormorant perched on a post...

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When the rising tide reached his tail he took to the air, and disappeared. Later, I spotted the distinctive black cormorant shape, aiming like an arrow for a ledge on the cliffs, where he landed and posed perfectly in the sun.
My thanks to Sunny and Pardofelis for pointing out the second one is a Shag not a Cormorant!

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The light gradually gets more golden as the sun sets, really beautiful experience being there!

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Wonderful portraits again!

Woooow! A shag! I never saw one in my life! Cormorants are very common where I live, but as I live well inland and shags are not found in freshwater, I had no chance to find one. You're lucky!

wonderful photos George! and a wonderful thread, thanks for sharing!

is the first bird in the water a cormorant (with a little bit of white under his chin?)
and the 2nd bird on the ledge a shag ? (all black?)

link here for id ?

I regularly watch cormorants here as they dive into the water below me (I am on a cliff looking down on them), and I watch as they swim underwater for at least 20m before surfacing.

the egret is stunning! your camera has captured his/her feathers perfectly - so soft and feathery;)

were you very close to these birds ??

sunny wrote:

is the first bird in the water a cormorant (with a little bit of white under his chin?)
and the 2nd bird on the ledge a shag ? (all black?)

Of course. First pic is a cormorant and all the others are a shag.

I never even noticed the lack of white on it! Now I have to re-title all these pictures and add a new name to the list of birds I've seen (thanks for pointing out that I didn't know what I'd seen )

I wasn't very close, no - my camera's just got a decent zoom, so I'm able to be far enough away that they don't feel threatened and move to avoid me. I'd say I was probably about 20 feet / 6 metres from the egret (across water wide and deep enough for boats to pass), and the shag was about 40 feet / 12 metres above me (on a vertical cliff face while I stood on the beach), so each of them felt there was no way I could get any nearer than I was already standing!

Wonderful photos especially the Shag-not always an easy bird to find!

Those are really fantastic pictures! That cormorant photo is really magnificent!

I'm glad so many of you enjoyed the second batch of photos. Here's the third - another set from the same sea cliffs, this time with fulmars. I don't only photograph birds, but this time of year I go to the coast more than anywhere, and they're just the perfect subject in the winter light.

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Their calls are so lovely, harsh and unpretty compared to songbirds, but so evocative of a lifetime of walks along the beach.

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Our famous striped cliffs, white above and red below.

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They have such beautiful eyes

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The birds coming back would fly wide arcs, circling out from the cliff in the same way every time before landing, it didn't take long to get used to tracking them with the camera and catching them in flight. There were several of us, strangers but all quietly watching and waiting together, moving up the beach as the tide came in and splashed round our feet - one with a phone, one with professional long lens equipment, and me in between with my digital camera.

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Once the sunset started to get under their wings, they glowed

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Each returning bird would be greeted with a chorus from the others on the ledge

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A lot were already sitting in their pairs for the breeding season to come

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It was a beautiful afternoon, standing on the beach with the tide lapping closer, between the sunset...

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...and the rising moon...

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Somehow I missed this topic, these photos are beautiful! I especially love the last photos in the sunset and with the moon

WOW !!! This is gorgous !!!!

And your comments are great , - for instance I know how the sound of seabirds bring memories and the true feeling of ocean

what very beautiful photos. Looks like you had a thrilling afternoon! Thanks for sharing again!, I'd never heard of those stripey cliffs ?
I agree that their eyes are beautiful! I was just admiring them before I read your comment
they have a dark patch of feathers at the very front of them, adding depth and making them sparkle

Really lovely shots, capturing snippets from nature in such a beautiful way!

So beautiful pictures! Your gulls are not gulls.
So you go to the seaside to listen to the sound of chickens.
I am kidding, those birds are more beautiful than gulls and I agree, I love their fulminant eyes.

Beautiful photos!!!I remember when I worked with wildlife we had a few Fulmars brought in-generally exhausted from being blown of course-had to handle them carefully or the would project a horrible fishy soup at you!!!

Thank you, to everyone who has replied! Really lovely to hear each of you enjoyed these, I was so happy to have been there on such a great day for the light, so I'm glad a little bit of that has been passed along for more of you to enjoy.

Joliezac wrote:

Somehow I missed this topic, these photos are beautiful! I especially love the last photos in the sunset and with the moon

The sun and the moon were amazing, just standing there turning between one setting and the other rising, and the whole sky slowly changing colour. I took a lot of photos which had no birds in at all, it was just so beautiful.

sunny wrote:

what very beautiful photos. Looks like you had a thrilling afternoon! Thanks for sharing again!, I'd never heard of those stripey cliffs ?

Here's the cliffs in all their glory!

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Roger wrote:

So beautiful pictures! Your gulls are not gulls.
So you go to the seaside to listen to the sound of chickens.
I am kidding, those birds are more beautiful than gulls and I agree, I love their fulminant eyes.

Here's a gull (who is a gull) for you!

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Wonderful models, pictures and light!