Taunton Wildlife – Nature Photo Diary – April 2010

 

Côtes-d'Armor, Brittany, April 2010

Gannet, Île Rouzic, Les Sept-Îles, 7 April 2010

Crested Tit, Île-Grande, Côtes-d'Armor, 8 April 2010

A fantastic family holiday, rather than a birding trip, but I did get to go again on the boat trip to the Gannet colony at Île Rouzic, Les Sept-Îles, so most of my bird pics come from that trip. The sea was a bit choppy and it was the only overcast spell of the week, so out of the 200 pics I took, I have selected the best. The ones that aren't Gannets are Razorbills.

The garden of our holiday house had several huge pine and cypress trees which had at least 5 Crested Tit, as well as Goldcrest and singing Serin. These were all extremely hard to photograph, especially the Serin, which, in spite of their obviously exposed singing positions, were extremely wary and I never got a good photo of them. The bottom photo is of a singing Chiffchaff, also in the garden of the gite.

Then, on the return ferry across the channel, we jammed in on a group of about 100 fishing gannets and, just as I said, "Better watch out for...", and there they were - Common Dolphins giving brief but great views (no photos as we were in the restaurant at the time!). Later, from the deck, this distant Great Skua and some sunset Gannets to end the trip.