Up, up and away

So yesterday afternoon I headed out with Uncle Wilf to release some of his young birds on a training run.  Part of the regime of pigeon racing is not only exercising your birds around home, but also taking them out to certain locations that may be useful for the birds in later races, and letting them familiarise themselves with the lay of the land, as well as helping them to build up endurance and fitness.

So with 38 youngsters in the back of the ute we headed through to a secret location on the banks of the Severn River (actually I'm not sure it is secret, but it sounds better anyway).  The weather in the morning had been typically British summerery type weather, wind, wetting drizzle and cool, but by lunchtime it was looking better, and as we navigated the narrow country lanes near the release site the sun was actually shining...should have brought my sunscreen (yeah right!).  Anyway, we started to get the cages out of the ute and put them up on a stop-bank wall when three kids, Jill and another lady came along.  They were pretty keen on seeing the birds released, and as Wilf opened the trap-doors they watched as the pigeons took to the skies and circled, before heading off up the river.  We let the four baskets of birds go, and then headed home, hopefully to find the birds quietly tucked up in their lofts.  We arrived and most of the birds had arrived back, but somehow some of the birds had become split, and we were waiting on a few to get back.  Sometimes I guess they can become split of their own accord, but sometimes it might also be the local peregrines working the flocks and splitting birds off.  Anyway, by the end of the day all of the birds had arrived home safely, and I also spent a bit of time taking photos of some of Wilf's hens exercising around the lofts.  Also got a few nice shots of the Welsh Beulah ewes that are grazing their farm, and the Leicester Border X lambs they have produced.  Nice looking sheep (no funny comments please!) with black and white faces.

There was then a bit of excitement with a hobby ripping through the area creating hell with the swallows and house martins.  We had seen him the other day, and Uncle Wilf has seen it a bit this summer, so suspect they are hanging around the area.  Was fantastic to watch it zipping around and at one stage went into full chase mode, swirling through the air after a swallow or martin.  They are so unbelievably manouverable it has to be seen to be believed, but all the swallows lived to see another day, with the bird not being successful.  It was in the area for a good few minutes on several occasions later on, and you could generally tell when it was about as all the birds would go mad, calling and twittering and diving around the place.  Even the jays down in the wood gave a few coughs.  When I got home and looked at my photos of the exercising pigeons I was astounded to see a distant diving hobby in the background of one of the photos!  Well it certainly looks like a hobby rather than a barn swallow!  Pretty cool, and another nice day in the Forest of Dean.

The youngsters loft, with the travel cages ready to go

Boxing them up

We had an audience

Which one is the fastest?

Ready steady...

GO!

There they go!

More on the wing

Overlooking the Severn River

Welsh Beulah blackface ewe

Exercising pigeons, with a stooping hobby in the background, well I don't think it is just a barn swallow??

Welsh Beulah X Border Leicester cross lamb

Welsh Beulah ewe

Add caption

A hobby and his prey

A barn swallow comes right up and screams at the hobby

Welsh Beulah ewe with the sun catching her face

Fun in the Forest

Well yesterday the weather was actually quite nice, so would you believe it, I ventured outdoors!  Been sitting in front of the computer far too much lately, captioning and keywording images, so it was nice to get out and get a bit of fresh air, and the odd ray of sunshine.  Not sure that I got more than 1/100th of a daily dose of vitamin D, but oh well it was good anyway.  Dad had headed to Mum's Uncle and Aunt's earlier in the day, and then Mum and I headed there mid-morning.  We got a little waylaid, with me deciding some photos of the 'Cathedral of the Forest' (yep apparently that's what it is called!), the nice little church at Newland, might be good, especially with the weather the way it was.

We got down to Uncle Wilf and Aunty Janet's place just in time for a lovely cooked Sunday lunch, and then I mad a nuisance of myself there with my camera as well.  First off Uncle Wilf had some honey from his hives to deal with, so we spun that out, and got a few jars at least.  Then it was time to check out some of the medal winning pigeons.  Now Uncle Wilf is a bit of a legend in pigeon circles, having over the years amassed an impressive trophy room (and then there are the sheep dog medals and trophies as well) and been a pigeon nut for many years.  You don't need to search far on the internet to find info - like here.  So we did a bit of a photo shoot with both his two latest 'Barcelona hens', so named for having competed in and placed in these massive long distance races from Barcelona (and other locations down that way) back to little old Monmouthshire!  Barcelona back to Wilf's loft is 754.59 miles (1,214 kms) as the pigeon flies, pretty impressive stuff!  These two hens are the latest in a run of birds that have placed in these long distance races, and currently “Barcelona Lady" and “Barcelona Beau” are clearly loft favourites.  "Barcelona Lady" placed first into Wales in 2011 and "Barcelona Beau" 3rd.  We then had a look around the main racing loft, and I got some photos from inside, the results of which I think are quite special.  Uncle Wilf is so passionate about pigeons, and its hard not to get a little excited when talking to him about them, and seeing some of the birds that have done these incredible races.

I spotted four fallow hinds and their half grown fawns down in the field below, and so headed down there to see if I could get any photos.  The wind was not in my favour, and I'm sure I rushed things too much, so the end result was watching them leap back into the woods.  Never mind.  I was more successful with photos of 'Buster' a new recruit at the farm, and one whom I'm sure will bring many years of joy.  A real cute little dog.  So all in all a pretty nice day!

Woodland and fields near Newland, on the way to the farm

'The Cathedral of the Forest'

Not a bad looking wee church, built in the early 1200s...yes for those of you in New Zealand that is not a typo...1200s!

Uncle Wilf taking the caps of the comb

Yum yum!

Going through the strainer

Stunning views down the valley from their place

The 'Barcelona Hens' (I mean the pigeons), Uncle Wilf holding 'Barcelona Beau' and Aunty Jan holding 'Barcelona Lady'

They swapped birds in this photo - 'Lady' with Wilf and 'Beau' with Janet

There's still a few miles in 'Lady'!

A 'cat' amongst the pigeons

One of the current racers being given instructions

Action

Master of the valley

Looking on with the flock exercising

A racer comes in to land

The birds exercising

'Buster' busting a move

What big ears I have

Tongue wagging

Grrrr!

Captioning images...fun oh fun!

Well been a mostly restful few days here at Mum and Dad's, although I can never sit around for too long, and there is always work to be done!  The images from the last cruise have been captioned and burnt to DVD and should be winging their way to the Zegrahm Expeditions office as I write this.  However, I now have another 1012 images that have been selected for submission to stock libraries, and so working through those captioning them all and making sure they are keyworded appropriately, etc.  It'll take a while!

However, it is nice to look back through images and remember the places and times they were taken.  I have therefore been reminded of the great trip I did out to Tiritiri Matangi Island last September, with mates John Ewen, Kevin Parker, Doug Armstrong and others.  Got some great photos, with a bunch of them having been selected.  However, this sequence below is probably one of the strangest sequences shot during this trip.  I was perched in a small tree for hours photographing a North Island robin nest, and in fact did so on two occasions, but towards the end of the second stint something really bizarre happened.  A female stitchbird approached the nest, peered into it at the chicks in the nest, and then appeared to feed the begging chicks.  This is the first record of something like this ever happening with these two species, and is made even more bizarre by the fact they are completely unrelated, feed on very different foods (although may share some invertebrate prey species sometimes), and stitchbird nest in cavities!  All a little strange, but glad I was there to capture it.

I will be trying to get some other photos from the last few months up on here over the next week as well.

The real parent feeding the chicks

The real parent at the nest, note the large spider abdomen sticking out of the chicks mouth

The female stitchbird at the nest poised to feed the robin chicks

Looking into the nest

Female stitchbird feeding the robin chick

A long pause!

Well there hasn't been much from me on here of late!  The last month on board the Clipper Odyssey was with Zegrahm Expeditions, and as well as general Expedition Staff duties I was the Digital Photographer for the three cruises.  So we left Plymouth, England on 3 July and finished in Reykjavik, Iceland on 6 August.  Absolutely fantastic three cruises with a lot of time in Iceland, but running through Ireland, Scotland, and the stunning Faroes Islands on the way.  I will steadily post images from the last month online whilst I am here in the UK.  Staying with Mum and Dad and getting caught up on sleep, home cooking, and emails!

Here is one of my favourite shots from the last few weeks...more to come!

Black-legged kittiwake returning to its nest and partner