Otter at Walmsley bird sanctuary.

An early morning start today to try to see all the waders and wildfowl in the reserve at roost.

Masses of birds including a lone barn owl perched up in the far meadow.

Highlight however proved to be mammalian in the shape of this otter which entertained for about 10 minutes in front of the tower hide.

Unfortunately the sun hadn't yet crested the brow and I was forced to use a very high ISO which produced a fair bit of noise/grain in the images.

Still it's always a joy to see otters at any time!

Cormorant at Tehidy Country Park.

A few images of a very amenable young cormorant that I've had the pleasure to watch and photograph over the past two days at Tehidy Country Park near Camborne.

Golitha Falls on the River Fowey.

Spent yesterday at the splendid Golitha Falls and The Cheesewring with friends from the Wadebridge & District Camera Club.


Just the perfect time at the falls as the beech leaves were in their best colours and just enough water to make great patterns as it swirled amongst fallen leaves.


I'll follow up with the Cheesewring pics in a couple of days.

Here are a few more from Golitha.....

The North Cornish coast from a boat!

The Rumps and Mouls island

A few images from a boat trip counting seals yesterday out of Padstow to all the off islands and up as far as Boscastle.

Fishing boat returning to Padstow harbour

Stepper Point

Stepper Point

Lifeboat station near Mother Ivey's Bay

Trevose

Trevose lighthouse

The Quies

The Rumps

Pentargon

Hawkers Cove

Hawkers Cove

Blowhole near Tregudda Gorge

Waves at Butter Hole

Some North Pacific seabirds.

Tufted Puffin

A few photos from my recent trip to Alaska.

We saw both species of puffin, the 'Tufted' and the 'Horned' from a boat out of Seward toward the Kenai glaciers but it was difficult to photograph them as we were a lot higher than them and it was also blowing a gale!

Here is a shot of the 'Horned' puffin from the boat....... sorry about the quality!

Horned Puffin

The other shots of the Tufted Puffin were taken at the Alaska Sealife Centre in Seward where they have several seabirds undergoing rehabilitation or where they can no longer be returned to the wild for one reason or another. To visit their website click here.....

Tufted Puffin

Tufted Puffin

Tufted Puffin

 

Another of the seabirds familiar to us but with a North Pacific variant is the Red-Legged Kittiwake, similar to our Black-Legged Kittiwake but for the obvious plus a few other differences.

Red-Legged Kittiwake

A few more Alaskan brown bears!

I've just started editing some of my photos from our Alaska trip so here are a few more brown bears which I photographed at Brooks Falls in the Katmai National Park last week.

The Alaskan Salmon run the bear gauntlet!

Sockeye Salmon spawning.

After a couple of years in freshwater and up to 3 in salt water the Sockeye Salmon return to the rivers of their birth to spawn.

They do this en-masse when the river conditions are right and somehow this strategy seems to work.

Maybe the sheer number of fish overwhelm the predators..... the bears certainly get their fill but the fish still seem to be here in vast numbers.

Everywhere we look we see salmon, alive and dead. The beaches, streams, rivers and lakes are teeming with dead and dying fish.

Not only were there Sockeye, but Pinks, Coho, and Chum Salmon.

Here are just a few images, sometimes gruesome, although I like to think of them as artistic!

The male Sockeye with its hump.

The male Sockeye with its hump.

These Alaskan Brown Bears can grow up to 900 lbs on the rich salmon diet.