This week’s photo is of a male Sparrowhawk with prey before he presents it to the female at the nest. He had caught this bird in our garden and I followed him across into Hopwood woods where his nest was located. Three young have now fledged  and are flying around calling excitedly. Sparrowhawks time their breeding season so that when they need most food there is an abundance of young birds available. Unfortunately that means he hunts our garden regularly to catch the juvenile  Goldfinches, Greenfinches and Sparrows that are now feeding.

Over the years I have filmed many different Sparrowhawks  in the garden and this week’s gallery shows some of them . Click here

The star garden bird of the week was a female Blackcap feeding on the honeysuckle berries.

The big event of the weekend has been the Birdwatchers Fair at Rutland Water. One day is now not long enough to see everything and I would recommend it to everyone who has never been to go next August when it returns.

I have never classed myself as a twitcher but there are some birds that I would travel a few miles to see. One of those is a Sabine’s Gull that normally stays in the high Arctic. My three previous sightings have been in Spitsbergen, Alaska and Greenland so one at Pennington Flash was a bit of a shock especially as I could not see any ice anywhere!

It was a second summer bird so lacked the full yellow on the bill and the red ring around its eye but was still a cracking bird to photograph in perfect conditions Click here. Two days later there was high drama when a Pike grabbed the gull and pulled it underwater to eat! However it hadn’t come all the way from the high Arctic for nothing and fought back to the surface and flew off! It was blooded and nervous for a while but is now back to normal and still coming to bread at Pennington Flash. Good luck to it.

During the week the garden has been full of juvenile birds, including Bullfinches. In Hopwood woods a Green Woodpecker was vocal and three young Sparrowhawks were on their wing. On the 14th more than one hundred House Martins were feeding close to the tree tops.

One of the bonuses of visiting the Farne Isles for Puffins is that there are good opportunities for filming Sandwich Terns and other sea-birds. Each year on Inner Farne there is a very accessible colony of Sandwich Terns that you can film from the footpath. Arctic Terns are everywhere and will readily attack so a head cover is essential. One word of warning is that by late August the seabirds have finished breeding and flown back out to sea. Click here

The big event this week-end has been the Hen Harrier day in the Goyt valley. I joined hundreds of other people to give my support to the stopping of the slaughter of this magnificent raptor by gamekeepers. It was good to meet many supporters who have watched my films and DVDs. Chris Packham gave an impressive presentation.

It is more than twenty years since I last visited a major seabird colony and I had almost forgotten how spectacular they can be. During that brief spell of hot weather in late June I decided that it was time to visit the Farne Isles to capture flight shots of Puffins carrying fish. Something that was almost impossible to do in the pre digital age.

The Farne Isles must be the most accessible major sea-bird colony in Britain with plenty of boats taking visitors from Seahouses every day. With boat fares and National Trust landing fees it is not a cheap day out but for anyone who has never visited before it is an unforgettable experience. Long before you arrive on the islands the smell of guano percolates through the air and then the clamour of thousands of seabirds greets you as you step ashore. Puffins flying in every direction carrying fish was just what I wanted and it is amazing how quickly five hours can go by when you are engrossed in filming

In 1960, when I was a keen fourteen year old bird-watcher, I was taken on a day trip to Skomer Island in Pembrokeshire. The spectacle of that one day out has stayed with me forever and I would recommend it to anyone interested in wildlife. Click here

Having spent nearly fifty years filming wildlife there are bound to be occasions when something happens whilst you are filming that you are quite sure can never be surpassed. One such event occurred on Jura some years ago when an Otter brought an Octopus out of the sea in full view of my camera. As it bit into the Octopus a cloud of black ink was released and covered the Otter! I felt quite sure that if I filmed Otters for another fifty years no event would ever surpass that. I was wrong!

On Mull last week I was hidden amongst boulders watching a female Otter and her fully grown young fishing. Normally,if you are lucky, when she catches a large crab she will swim ashore to share it with her offspring This is what you are waiting for and eventually she began to make her way to shore with a large item of prey. As she emerged from the seaweed she was clutching a four foot Conger Eel! The eel was wriggling about and her jaws were closed behind its head as she struggled to pull it through the seaweed. This weeks gallery shows the series of photos I managed to take during this epic struggle. It now begs the question can this event ever be surpassed? Click here

After last years visit to Mull especially to film Sea Eagles we decided to return this year for a less intense filming week. Along with other Hebridean islands this year the cold spring has had an adverse effect on the breeding Eagles with the Golden Eagles having almost failed completely. Fortunately the Sea Eagles have not been as badly affected and todays gallery includes some of the photos I took from two sailings on the “Eagle” boat. At one point we had four juvenile Sea Eagles in the air together high over the boat.

With it being a late Spring Mull’s flowers were at their best and during the week we identified ninety five species. Included in these were Greater and Lesser Butterfly Orchids, masses of Flagrant Orchids and two Small White Orchids. Unfortunately July also means that Mull is covered in high Bracken which makes searching for Otters along the coast very difficult. Having said that we did manage to find nine Otters during the week. I have always maintained that if you put the time in you are entitled to some luck and that is what happened whilst I was watching a female Otter and her young. All of a sudden she swam to the shore and proceeded to pull out of the sea a four foot long Conger Eel! Photos to follow in next weeks blog and gallery. Click here for Eagle photos