A new experience

Yesterday brought the first snow of the winter.  As the sparrowhawk is only a few months old it was the first time he had seen it.  He had already had his breakfast (a blue tit).

and was wondering about a second helping when it started to snow.

After a few minutes he moved up to the perch, unusual for him as he spends a lot of time on the ground, but it made the photos a bit more interesting.  Autofocus doesn't work in the snow (the camera keeps trying to focus on snowflakes) so I have to focus manually and the snow was wetting the window so the photos are less clear.

I wondered if the snow would make his prey easier for him to see but they were all keeping a low profile and I didn't see him make a strike while it was falling.  Once it stopped he was back on high alert.

My lunchtime visitor

Another big surprise.  I was just getting lunch today when I glanced out of the kitchen window to see a fox strolling around the garden.  Most of the cameras were set up for the sparrowhawk but I managed to grab one and fire off a few photos.  The lens was 300mm and the fox was a bit too close at times.  It had quick sniff around under the bird feeders and then trotted off.  You can see it has a nasty facial wound, very probably inflicted during a fight with a rival.  I hope it heals OK and it may enable me to identify this one again if it comes to the back door at night.  It certainly seemed to know its way around.

Shooting sparrowhawks

It is almost two years to the day that I took this photo.  I had seen this adult male sparrowhawk hanging around in the kitchen garden, attracted by birds on the feeder outside the window, but he kept sitting in the wrong places where I couldn't get a decent picture.  So I put in a post and within a day he was sitting on it, only about 4m from the window.

I then found a more photogenic perch which I have used ever since. This bird stayed around until early March 2017 and then moved on.

In December 2017 a new sparrowhawk arrived, this time a juvenile male, and he immediately took to the perch

The perch is on the north side of the house so it is in shade all day in the winter

This one stayed until 3rd April 2018, by which time there was more sunshine and sometimes he sat on the hedge even closer to the window.  This photo was taken from 2.5m away.

The latest sparrowhawk is also a juvenile male.  He arrived at the end of November and has been here ever since.  He is the most reliable so far and I have seen him every day since Christmas Eve.

The way I take the photos has evolved over the past three winters.  All are taken through the double glazing as I doubt the bird would tolerate the open window.  I keep the window clean and shoot at right angles to the glass with the front of the lens very close to the glass to avoid any reflections.  I have built a shelf into the window recess with space for two cameras, usually one with a 70-200mm lens and the other with a 150-600mm lens.  The cameras are at a comfortable height when I am standing and are well supported so I can get away with fairly low shutter speeds to help cope with the poor light.  Here the sparrowhawk is sitting in the rain in front of the 70-200mm lens.

You can see the feeder is a bit closer to me than his perch so most of the time he sits to face me.

Here he is on top of the hedge in front of the 150-600mm lens

I have taped scrim netting to the window frame so I am completely hidden from him.

The latest sparrowhawk spends a lot of time sitting under the gooseberry bushes below the feeder so I now have two cutouts in the lower corners of the cardboard below the shelf.  Each has a shoebox with a hole cut in it.  The shoebox is black on the outside, again to minimise reflections.  Sometimes the bird is closer than 1.5m from the camera.  Most of the photos and videos of him on a kill have been taken like this.

Here is a brief video clip taken this afternoon.  He particularly likes this spot when it is very windy, as it was today, and he can sit there for over an hour.  He saw something worth chasing but I didn't see whether he caught it.

Here is his view of the whole set up.  The perch is in the foreground and on the right is the gooseberry bush where the small birds shelter and hope to avoid capture.  Behind the window you can see the two camera lenses on the shelf and the lower corners cut out of the cardboard.  I stand hidden behind the scrim netting so he has no idea I am there.

The current sparrowhawk is the most adventurous of the three I have had in the past three winters.  He spends more time in the garden than the other two and has been taking an increasing interest in birds on the feeders outside the sitting room window on the other side of the house.  I have just built an emergency hide there too and no doubt that will evolve as well.

This is the first photo I have managed from the new position (the blue rope has now gone).  So far he spends less time here and is constantly on the move but if he sticks around I hope to get more and better photos.  This one was taken before sunrise on a cloudy morning but generally the light should be better on this side of the house.  Having been brought up in the days when a standard film had an ASA (ISO) of 100 and "fast" film had an ASA of 400 I am constantly surprised by the performance of modern digital cameras.  Here the ISO was 4000 with f/2.8 at 1/160s so the result is pretty impressive.  If I do get better photos you can be sure I'll post them here.

Bird of the week - Bittern

The bittern is a rare bird in this country and is on the amber list in the UK (having been red-listed until 2014).  We have more than 100 breeding pairs with perhaps 600 or so birds in the winter.  In 2017 there were 166 "booming" bitterns (males in breeding condition) in the country, an increase from a low of 11 in 1997.  In my local nature reserve in Gosforth Park a few bitterns arrive every summer and stay until the following spring.  A lot of effort has been put into improving the habitat in the reed beds in the hope that one day bitterns might breed here although so far they haven't. Ours are elusive when they first come back but seem to get easier to see as the winter goes on.  At this time of year we will expect to see them every day, either flying from place to place across the reed beds or suddenly breaking cover and flapping across the pool before crashing into the reeds on the other side.  They are elegant in flight but not on take-off or landing.

The bittern is also known as the great bittern or Eurasian bittern and is found across Europe and Asia in the breeding season.

Yellow: breeding, green: year round, blue: non-breeding.

By Cephas - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8677345

The bittern is Botaurus stellaris, Botaurus because its booming call sounds like a bull and stellaris from its starry plumage.  Unlike its relatives grey herons and egrets it is an elusive bird and, as you can see from the photos, it is beautifully camouflaged in the reeds.

Thomas Bewick wrote about the bittern in A History of British Birds, vol ii, in 1832.

The Bittern is a shy, solitary bird; it is never seen on the wing in the day time; but sits, commonly with the head erect, hid among the reeds and rushes in the marshes, where it takes up its abode, and from whence it will not stir, unless disturbed by the sportsman.

Perhaps bitterns are a little easier to see now that they are not hunted and feel a little safer. This is Bewick's engraving.

 Archibald Thorburn made several paintings and sketches of bitterns.

You can listen to a bittern booming in Kate Humble's BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day here.