My main reason for visiting Turf yet again was to try and get some good Heron photos and I have to admit to just liking the ambience there. It’s very peaceful and tranquil. I like the canal and the boats, and the air seems so clean with the smells of Autumn, the calls of the Curlew in the distance and the chance to see Kingfishers (which are very frustrating). I was really surprised to see this family of Swallows. The young obviously newly fledged and still being fed. But with swallows that perch high on wires you are always looking up into bright sky and the subject is going to be back lit which makes good photography hard to achieve. It was a challenge to get the shots that I did and very interesting and entertaining to watch the adult feeding the young. I wonder if they will be strong enough to make the migration very soon, I hope so but we will never know!

This is the adult bird, or one of them preening his tail which makes a perfect shot. It is just like a humming bird at this angle. If you go to my Flickr galleries here you will be able to see a close up and much better shot of all these photographs and 600 more! Not all swallows of course but all my photos from the last year.

So here is the Heron again, the dark background of the boat has given this a great quality, go and look on the flickr gallery to see it full size, just click on the image and you will be there immediately. Then click on all sizes above the image to open up the original image size, well worth doing.!

So there I was taking shots of the Swallows when suddenly a little Chiffchaff joined them on the wire! This is a Chiffchaff for certain and not the almost identical Willow Warbler, the dark legs are a good indicator but I heard it calling it’s “mono-sylabic” chiff-chaff call which gives it it’s name.

I just love this phot, looks like an oriental painting!