Happy New Year one and all!  2009 has been an excellent one for me with my collection of bird species photographed swelling to about 130 from about 90 species at the end of 2008.  I upgraded my photographic kit over the year which has greatly improved my chances of getting decent quality pictures.  I have also met lots of great people while birding both online and in the flesh - thanks for all the help and advice received.

Today I wanted to have a go at bagging some of the species tht eluded me last time I was out.

Cheddar reservoir seems a real hot-spot at the moment but I either don't manage to find the birds or they are too far off to photograph.  Today my luck changed and I managed to get at least one of the grebe species that had been seen in recent days.  The Slavonian grebe was nowhere to be seen but one of the black-necked grebe was just about close enough for some pictures using the 500mm + 1.4x.  This was a new one to me so I'm delighted to have any images at all.  More pictures can be seen here.

Unfortunately I still couldn't make contact with the ring-necked duck or the female red-crested pochard.  Maybe next time - it would be boring if it was too easy!

I decided next to head down to Godney ponds near Westhay NNR to try to bag the ferruginous duck.  On the way, just outside Wedmore, I overshot my turning and had to pull in to do a u-turn.  Much to my surprise, there was a kestrel hovering 20 yards a way so I hopped out of the car and managed to get my best kestrel shots ever handholding the camera.  If only things like that happened more often.  The two larger kestrel pics on this page result from that happy chance.

The ferruginous duck wasn't showing so I headed on to Sharpham where I met another group of birders watching some Whoopers.  These were a very long way off so the pictures I managed were of record quality only and were taken with the 500mm + 1.4x + 2x teleconverters stacked.  Not brilliant quality but if you want a peek the pics are here.

A very Happy New Year to everyone and Good Birding for 2010!