Everything is Permuted

Somehow I knew this would happen. I've been monitoring a nesting gull since about 12th May and had kept a daily watch up until last Friday, when the Bank Holiday weekend intervened. Sure enough, when I took a look this morning the eggs had hatched. There are two chicks in the brood (Herring Gulls lay two or three eggs usually), and judging by the look of them they can only have emerged in the last day or so.

The photos were all taken from a safe distance and the birds were unaware of my presence.

The first sighting

A closer look

Lunchtime!

Cute x2

Back to the nest

Playtime

I've got wings!

That was a small selection. More shots are in my Herring Gull Chicks album, on the main site. There's also a link there with information about photographing wild or nesting birds.

Camera note: all shots were taken with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. For the ones out of the nest I added the Kenko Teleplus 1.4x Pro 300 DG teleconverter.

Yesterday's pheasant photo was good, but it wasn't my first sighting. Today was altogether in a different league.

The gulls were flocking and behaving somewhat erratically when I went outside. Generally they flock at fairly high altitudes round here, but today they were tending to come in lower and fights were breaking out among them. Also they were heading away, rather than the usual defensive circling.

Gulls fighting on the wing

As the sky cleared of gulls I looked up and saw a large slow-winged bird coming into view. It wasn't a sparrowhawk. It was too large. Blow me away, it was a buzzard! Although common in the UK, they are generally located further north and west. In recent years they have been re-colonizing in the South East and sightings are not unusual. But until today, I'd never seen one.

Buzzard

Buzzard

Buzzard

I spent much of the rest of the day with my eyes towards the heavens. No more raptors, but I did manage some decent flight shots of pigeons and magpies which are in the March Birds album.

I was wandering around one of the buildings at work today and stumbled upon a Herring Gull chick drinking from a plastic water container. It was unusually tolerant of my presence, and was limping somewhat. While I was snapping away, one of the guys from the building came over and - seeing my camera - said. "So George is famous then." It turns out he must had fallen from a roof about two weeks ago, and although he can get around, no-one had been able to persuade him to fly. The best anyone had seen to date was a brief flap while he hopped down or up the steps. The locals - in between flapping their arms madly at him to encourage him to take off - are all feeding him, and making sure he's safe.


George at the water bowl


George on the grass


You can see the injured leg in this shot

Just after that final photo, George decided that enough was enough and to my astonishment launched himself skyward. So he can fly after all and I suppose I'm the sole witness of his maiden flight (and unforgiveably didn't have the camera ready). I'll check back at the building tomorrow to see if he's still around. Either way... George, you're now famous!