Its been a good few days with my first success in a photo competition, in fact the Dartmoor Preservation Society  competition. My picture of a Male Whinchat taken in June was judged as Highly Commended in the Dartmoor life category. I am pleased because as you can see it is a close up and the brief of the competition was to reflect the life of Dartmoor and this image, whilst taken in Dartmoor doesn't show this in any way.

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All in all a pretty satisfying result. What the photo doesn't show is the week of sitting in the hide and the other 250 pictures that weren't up to the mark. I remember feeling really pleased with this picture as soon as I took it. Watching the bird and his mate for a week was as well, was very rewarding.

We have had some more rain and this raises the water level on my brook and I don't think this makes it the best habitat for the Kingfisher. However, I have sat in the hide both yesterday morning and again this afternoon, but no sign of him apart from a quick flash by yesterday. All we need now though is for the rain to keep off and the level to go down and I am sure we will be in business again. While I sat there this afternoon, almost with a wet backside in my built hide, a pair of Mallard came up the stream towards me. You know, these mallard are true wild birds and very wary, not park ducks prepared to take bread. So, it gave me a lot of confidence when they ignored the hide which is after all seemingly a collection of grass and reeds etc.well thats what its supposed to look like. Anyway here is one of the atmospheric photos taken.