Waxwings, Awards and a National Mega!

The past week has been an excellent one for a variety of reasons! Last weekend I found some local waxwings which for once were showing low down enough to achieve a smooth green background.

On friday I also attended the RSPCA Young Photography Awards Ceremony. To my amazement I won the 12-15 category with the image below (a result that was far better than I ever expected)

Finally, with news breaking of a Buff Bellied Pipit at Queen Mother Reservoir on Thursday, it was perhaps inevitable that today I was down there photographing the wonderfully confiding bird. Unfortunately at QMR low angles are virtually impossible due to the raised bank but hopefully these photos do the birds justice...

As always thanks for reading!

Also apologies for the randomly placed copyrights on my image (it is a fault I am currently trying to resolve!)

Divers and Grebes

Not many photos to share from recent trips unfortunately - just a couple of record shots of some rather special birds. The first, a Great Northern Diver from Theale. The bird was some 50m away but still the best views I have had of this species.

This second image is of a Slavonian Grebe at a site near where there was supposed to be a Snow Bunting (but I dipped!). Again a nice bird but too far away, the fencing boundary 15m away from the water's edge didn't help!

I will be having another go at photographing Little Owls this weekend and if I am successful, I will post the photographs next weekend.

As always, thanks for stopping by!