www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I was out yesterday, and saw these, does anyone know what species they are?:









Liked the ducklings alot, think this one had about 14 of them or so:



And a robin:

1. don't know
2. looks like an Hawaiian goose but the name eludes me
3. don't know (but could be Whistling Duck )
4. Shoveler
5. Mallard with cute chicks
6. A very tatty looking Robin. Poor thing.

Hi Denise,

Your right about Whistling goose, I just looked it up, its White-faced Whistling Duck (Dendrocygna viduata). Right about shoveler and mallard too.

When I was at the place with the ducks, I did notice two male mallards trying to bite a female while attacking eachother, actually seen this happen with more than a few individual mallards.

When I was here, I saw someone who had a Canon 5D Mk II (or a Canon 1D) and Canon 500mm f4 IS USM L Lens, boy it made my camera look small, he must have got some cracking shots with it.

Last year when I was on my travels with Eccles, we bumped into Markatbath. He's got a big one too!
Only fault was that it was a Nikon.
You've got some lovely shots there Dave.

Denise

hi all,
the first pair of duck are chiloe widgeon, a south american species.

the gooses hawiian name is the Nene.

gary.

Dave, maybe the Robin is feeding or perhaps its got mites. As the butterflies have left the Lleyn Peninsula I've wandered off to the local golf course with the big lens and managed to get this Linnet, Ive never really seen one before and it was impossible to get really close, Shirley

Nice Linnet Shirley, and you might be right about the Robin, never really noticed the first time I took pic. I am going out again to watch the swallows, they appeared here now and there is loads of them.Got a few aright photos of them already, I'll post later.

Hi
I am not sure why I haven't posted to this one before, as I probably photogaph birds as much as I do butterflies.
Anyway - here are a Wheatear, Dipper and Red Kite from last weekend in mid-Wales.
Also photographed some amazing waterfalls (cheers Gary!)
Also an Osprey from a month or so ago.
Cheers.
Roger

"She who MUST be obeyed" insisted that I post my shot of two male Wheatear showing off to a female.

Roger

Roger, where are the waterfall photos, I liked to see those please. I like the your photos, not easy to get a Dipper, there are Ospreys nesting in Porthmadoc but even though they have a viewing place, its too far for photos I think.
Shirley

Just for you Shirley........

By the way, I normally use f4.5 to f8 for wildlife stuff.
In order to get the cheesy misty water effect here, I used f22.
This REALLY showed up how filthy my sensor is. I spent ages with the Spot Healing Brush cleaning these up.

Pete - if you bring your Arctic Butterfly to the event on Saturday, I will make a donation to BC for sensor cleaning - perhaps others will too?......

Roger

Will do - between Gary and I, I think we can sort you out

Cheers,

- Pete

Thanks Roger, fantastic waterfalls also thanks for the information.
Shirley

Hi Roger

Great Ospray and Red Kites! I still think birds of prey are my favourite birds, and seeing those kinda reafferms that. Also, love the waterfall effects. I have been trying to play around with shots like that using HDR (taking a few shots of the same thing using tripod and different time settings for each shot and overlapping all the images into one shot) gets interesting results, especially with water and partly cloudy skies.

Anyway, thanks Denise and Gary for IDs. I would have got more species, but there was kids running around where I was, spooking the ducks, so I hever really managed more shots than those. I have one more though I will upload when I get home, alont with other shots I got in the past few days.

Roger, I think I recognise one of those waterfalls. Was it at Ystradfellte? I was there on Easter Sunday. It was bright and sunny and full of people. There's a path behind the falls in the first picture. Unfortunately on the day I went I couldn't get a shot without someone posing behind it. It was made worse when I tried the milky effect as the people were rendered more visible. There was a fat guy who kept wading across the stream in the way. He had a rucksack on his back and fell in drenching the rucksack. I didn't get a shot of that unfortunately.
I did get these though.

Correct Mike - we were there on the Friday.
Lovely place, as you say crawling with people. We stayed there quite late and managed a shot or two without any people.
It was amazing to head behind the falls - Rose is not a hunchback - her waterproof is over her rucksack!

The way to avoid the crowds is either, go extremley early in the morning or go on Christmas day like we did!
I did still manage to get an idiot posing behind the waterfall though!

I was out today as its getting warmer and got this buzzard shot. granted its not the clearest and best shot, but its the closest I have got to one before.

I did still manage to get an idiot posing behind the waterfall though!

There's always one isn't there. Nice to meet you and the "idiot" again yesterday. A great day.

He was an idiot too, he fell over five mins later and broke his lens!

It was nice to meet you and Denise again, and everyone else for that matter. Didn't get much time to speak to you either , the day seemed to whizz by.
You should have come to the pub after