A morning at the Curlew Hide - Teifi Marshes

Sunny morning so decided to spend some time down on the Teifi. On the way in saw a Little Egret. During the morning saw the juvenile Great Crested Grebe again - this time a bit closer and with better light:

We also saw three snipe in the short reeds in front of the hide, a curlew, grey heron, cormorant - all making up a very good morning's photography. Then to make it brilliant we came across two young otters - later joined by their mother at the sluice gate by the Cardigan entrance to the reserve:





What is this bird?

It was sunny this morning after the mist had lifted so we went to the Creek Hide to see if we could get a view of the Water Rail. No luck - only the moorhen were on show. On the way back to the car we stopped off at the Curlew Hide - there were a couple of little egrets about but not close in. Then we saw this bird swimming near the opposite bank. It behaved like a cormorant - diving and presumably fishing. Open to suggestions as to what the bird is:

 

Richard D tells me that this is a juvenile Great Crested Grebe. Apparently this is unusual for the Teifi at this time of the year.

Kingfisher back at Creek Hide

Have not seen a kingfisher close enough to photograph for over a year so it was wonderful to see this bird today at the Creek Hide. Also present a couple of hundred Canada Geese, many mallard, some Teal, a coot (unusual for Creek Hide) and a single Little Grebe - so a good day. The kingfisher made it a wonderful day:



Hornet in our garden?

This insect came in to our garden this morning for a drink. It looks unusual and Jen hopes that is a 'very rare' visitor!! Is it a hornet?

Update: Janet tells me - It`s a horsefly called Tabanus sudeticus and it``s got a very ferocious bite!

A Sandwich Tern at Ynslas

Afer seeing the photographs of sandwich terns by Janet Baxter on the Ceredigion Birds blog I decided to go up there and look for them myself. I managed some images, the best of which was this one:

Taken with my new Canon 7d, the 500lens with 1.4 converter - ISO1000 f8 @ 1/3200sec.