This is my contribution to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: 1 Item or the Number One.
One shot immediately came to mind and I decided not to over think the challenge and to go with that photo.
A solitary Great Crested Grebe in a Black-headed Gull roost.
Tag: Black-headed Gulls
Weekly Prompts Photo Challenge: White
My contribution to the Weekly Prompts Photo Challenge: White.
Now I will admit that my first thought was snow but after a winter that dragged on for what seemed like 6 months I didn’t want to think about snow.
So I decided to go with a selection of photos of bird species that are mostly white, the first two have white in their common English name.
White-breasted Nuthatch, Saskatchewan, Canada.
American White Pelican, Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Caspian Tern with fish on the Lake Huron shoreline in Southampton, Ontario, Canada.
Black-headed Gulls in winter, Cheshire, England.
Snow Geese on autumn migration, Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Whooper Swan portrait, Lancashire, England.
Endings
My contribution to the A Photo a Week Challenge: Endings.
I had a few ideas for the challenge before deciding to go with a selection of photos taken at the end of the day.
Old barn and long shadows at the end of the day, Ontario, Canada.
Male Common Pochard at the end of the day, Lancashire, England.
Black-headed Gulls in winter roost at the end of the day, Cheshire, England.
White-tailedDeer at the end of the day, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Canada Geese flying to roost at end of the day, Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada.
St James’ Church, Audlem, Cheshire, England in silhouette at the end of the day.
Lines of ice on Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada at the end of the day.
Wings over water
The new Weekly Prompts Photo Challenge is Wings.
I thought about swarms of insects but decided that while you can see the insects you can’t see their wings while they’re flying in the swarm.
Then I thought about some of the photos from when I was a member of a small group of birders surveying and recording a winter roost of Gull species on an inland reservoir in south Cheshire, England.
A photo of Black-headed Gulls in winter roosting on Hurleston Reservoir at night. If something disturbs the birds on an edge of the roost they will fly to another side of the roost which is what they’re doing in the photo.
Black-headed Gulls in winter.
Preening in the shallows.
Throwback Thursday travels back to Hurleston Reservoir, Cheshire, England in the 1990s.
A group of Black-headed Gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) in winter plumage standing in a shallow section of the reservoir. I noticed that a surprising number of the birds were taking the opportunity to preen while standing in the water.
I’ve mentioned in previous posts about species having their common English names or their scientific names changed after DNA testing. In this case the scientific name has been changed since the photo was taken and captioned. So many species have had a name changed that these days l Google a species before I write a blog post or caption photos.
Bodies at rest/bodies in motion.
This week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge is Bodies at rest/Bodies in motion.
My first thought was a flock of birds taking flight. That should be easy as I have lots of flocks of birds in my files. Well it didn’t quite work out as easy as I thought it would be. For example, every photo of Snow Geese taking flight I checked has all the birds in motion. I checked some of the wader (shorebirds) species I have on file. Most of those photos either had all the birds at rest or all the birds in motion.
Then I remembered some of the photos from when I was part of a small group surveying and recording an inland Gull roost on Hurleston Reservoir in south Cheshire. The photo below shows a section of the Black-headed Gulls moving to a different part of the reservoir with other birds staying in place on the water.
