2012 Summary !!!

Sunday 30 December 2012

Another totally crazy year ...

Firstly 2012 has been amazing for so many reasons, Trips, Birds & Rain but most importantly images !!
That's what its all about images, Photographing birds, trying to capture artistic, pleasing shots of the chosen subject as best you can ...

This year has been difficult at times, mainly weather related, rain, grey cloud and the general lack of birds with many weekends resulting in no images.

Some months were laden with images to choose from and others well, scraping the barrel springs to mind !!

This is going to be extremely tough to choose but I'm going to start with ...


"Image of the Month"

January

Caspian Gull ~ Dungeness, Kent


February

Great Northern Diver ~ Galway, Ireland


March
  
Meadow Pipit ~ North Pennines, County Durham


April

Cuckoo ~ Two Tree Island, Essex


May


Kentish Plover ~ Albufereta, Majorca


June

Puffin ~ Farne Islands


July


Green Woodpecker ~ Elmley, Kent


August


Baird's Sandpiper ~ West Angle Bay, Pembrokeshire


September

Crested Tit ~ Loch Garten, Scotland


October

Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll ~ Norwick, Unst


November


Bonaparte's Gull ~ Dawlish Warren, Devon


December
Goosander ~ Billericay, Essex



In total 209 species photographed this year in the Western Palearctic.

British Year List for 2012 was 261 species.


Best Trip
Has to be our Ireland Trip in February for gull's .. The 3 of us birded from dawn till dusk at great locations and  resulted in some brilliant birds !!
Gulltastic trip and a return is planned !!

Worst Trip
For me sadly i'm going to have to give it to the Shetlands Trip, this was all weather dependant and it just didn't happen for the 2nd week and with no birds to photograph it made it hard work .. And to top it off the seasickness tablets didn't work on the way back !!

Best for Images
Has to be the Romania trip with Sakertours plenty of species all at touching distance !!
Superb !!

Luckiest Moment
So many but surely the Baird's Sandpiper at West Angle Bay, Pembrokeshire arrived at first light and had a 8 hr wait then Kev picked it up on call as it flew in ... we had it virtually to ourselves !!

Unluckiest  Moment
Stupidly waiting two days to go see the Cream-Coloured Courser, then Me & Kev drive half way there only to get news it had flown !!

Bird of the Year
Now with so many great birds seen this year it should of been hard to choose, but a day trip to the Pyrennes, Spain with Rachel & Aaron gave good views of Lammergeier...

Plans for 2013

Jan/Feb .. Ireland for Nearctic Gull's
March .. Morocco ~ BOOKED
Apr/May .. Lesvos ~ BOOKED
June .. Mull, Spain or Eygpt be nice ..
September .. Cape Verde ??

With a few long weekends,
You can never have enough trips !!

Target Species for 2013

Well  just about any species that let's you get close enough !! 

Thanks to all who take the time to talk, comment and give out info ...



" My Image of the Year 2012 "





2 comments:

Hawky said...

Wow looks like you have a busy 2013!! Good luck, and thanks for sharing the pics, lucky Sod :)

Jim said...

Stunning images Mick.
Already looking forward to viewing next years photo's.
Happy New Year.