I haven't been posting on a daily basis this last week or so because to be honest I haven't been very successful recently and hadn't really got a lot to say. Take today for example, at the pit and Buzzard hide I came very close to getting the photos that I am after.  That's  of the Buzzards coming in to feed "in-flight" which is what I have been trying so very patiently to achieve this last 3 weeks or so. This morning on arrival,  the rabbit carcass was all but a piece of fur with a head on it, reminiscent of a glove puppet.  On the ground beneath there was literally a back bone with leg bones attached all picked  entirely clean of flesh.  Obviously the Buzzards had feasted quite well since I placed it there on Sunday afternoon.  I placed day old chicks on the posts and a dead wood mouse which had come from a mouse trap from Dick's attic.  I had the camera pointing at the log and when a Buzzard came in to grab the mouse I just wasn't on the ball and missed the action totally.  It was the light bird "Blondie".   I replaced the mouse with a day old chick and sat back to wait  I was  expecting it to be a considerable wait as is often the case so I went to make a drink in the caravan and in the time it took to boil the kettle the chick had gone again….. It wasn't going well again.  Still full of anticipation, I replaced the chick and stood waiting this time, all the time peering through a port hole in the hide and with the camera set up and trained in the right direction.  After a short while the Buzzard flew in from the right….. I panicked and knocked the camera off its aim in my hurry to press the shutter…… I missed it again.  Then when I replaced the bait again, this time a Jay came in instead and took the chick as you can see below.  All in all an encouraging session with lots of action with not too much reward but nevertheless a thrilling couple of hours.

This time next week I will be in Sri Lanka.  I am going for 10 days to photograph the birds.  My main target birds are  Kingfishers.  There are 90 or so species in the world and I want to photograph as many as I can and add them to my photographic galleries.  I have lots to photograph yet as I have so far only photographed 5 different species.  I am very interested in the Sri Lankan sub species of our Common Kingfisher – Alcedo athis taprobana.  I hope to see and photograph 3 or 4 of the 6 other species but will be content with just 3.   It will be good to see the sub-species of our Common Kingfisher which I am very familiar with.  I have been told that  Alcedo athis taprobana is more confiding than our own Kingfisher Alcedo athis and therefore more easily photographed.  It is described as smaller with a more blue back than our own greeny/blue bird.  So far I have managed to photograph:  in the USA the Banded Kingfisher and in Australia the Sacred Kingfisher, Forest Kingfisher and the Blue Winged Kookaburra. In a very short over-night  stay in Sri Lanka some 20 years ago I "ticked-off" the White throated Kingfisher and I am told that they are extremely common and easily photographed in the area of Sri Lanka that I am visiting.  I am meeting up with a professional guide for one day. In conversations by email he tells me that he has perfected a method of calling in theStork-billed Kingfisher which he is going to share with me. This is all very exciting.