Ben Porter Wildlife Photography

It has been a lovely couple of days on the island, although the weather today was just stunning: very low winds from the east, clear blue skies, a slight chill to the air and excellent visibility. It is clear that the snowfall on the mainland has already started pushing waders and thrushes West in search of soft ground to feed on. This was evident with a moderate increase in thrush numbers over the last few days: 16 Blackbirds, two Fieldfares, 11 Song Thrushes and three Redwings were present today. Birding was very enjoyable today, with a nice selection of noteworthy species on show, including Red-throated Diver, Great Northern Diver, Mediterranean Gull, Jack Snipe and Sparrowhawk.

The stunning lighting this morning made for some nice photographs. I focussed in particularly on a juvenile Shag in Cafn, which was very approachable. As it swam back and forth across the small channel, it provided many different opportunities for images- experimenting with the different angles for lighting  was quite fun. Some of the results are below.

This will be the last post I will make from Bardsey Island for the next two months or so, as I will be leaving the island tomorrow and heading off to Ecuador in a week. I will be volunteering at a bird lodge in the north-western part of the country. I hope to update the blog with a few posts whilst I'm out there, so watch this space.

A mix of lichen species on a rock at the North end of the island

A small mushroom amongst some moss

This juvenile Shag could well be the smae individual featured in my previous post. It is an  unusually tame individual, which could perhaps meant that it is weak and unable to find enough food. It provided some good photographic opportunities just after sunrise this morning

Grey Seal bull in the early morning light

Stonechats: female in top two images, and male in bottom two