Nightingales

Today we were after Nightingales and any other of the Little Brown Jobs (LBJs) that we could find to fill the gaps in our year lists. This usually makes for an interesting days birding but a frustrating day for photography. The birds are often hard to find, they move fast, and they stay in cover. By the time you have identified them they have usually moved on and getting them in the view finder long enough to take a picture requires a lot of patience.  Fortunately that does not apply to the Nightingales. If you can find them out in the open they are usually more interested in singing and you can get some good views.

We started the day at Waltham Brooks where we had already seen Nightingales and Sedge Warblers on a previous visit. It was only a quick stopover and we did not find anything unusual although I was particularly pleased with this shot of a Linnet.

Linnet

It shouldn't have really worked. It was dull, windy, the bird was facing away from me, and it was too far away. I had no expectations of getting a usable shot. It perhaps makes up for the far more numerous occasions when I get home expecting to have superb shots in the camera, only to find, that when I put them up on the computer screen, they are not quite there.

Pulborough Brooks is a good place to observe the Nightingales. You have the best chance of seeing them when they first arrive and are establishing their territories. Later on you will still hear them singing but it will be from cover and they will be a lot harder to see.

There were plenty of Whitethroats around and a couple of Lesser Whitethroats but as usual the Lessers where proving hard to pin down. I was also pleased to get a shot of a Garden Warbler, a bird that I have had problems identifying and photographing in the past.

Whitethroat

Whitethroat

Garden Warbler

Late in the afternoon we were sitting having a cup of tea when Paul Snelgrove (Icemelter4) rushed in to tell us that there was a White Stork circling over the North Brooks. My thanks to Paul, it was a first for me in the UK and I would not have been very happy to have got home and found that I had missed it.

One final picture that I forgot to put on Tuesday's blog. Two Adders, I assume they are mating. The female is the larger brown coloured and the male the grey.

Adders mating

Its not the best picture I have ever taken but its certainly unusual and I did not want to get any closer in case I disturbed them.