It was Adrian Lea’s turn this week to look through pictures submitted to the daily sightings page.
Here’s his day by day summary – thanks Adrian.
“On Monday the glorious weather and calm sea clearly encouraged Rupert Kirkwood to venture forth in his kayak again, capturing an iconic image of an Arctic Skua in Mounts Bay with St Michael’s Mount in the background.
On Wednesday I particularly liked the image of four gaping-mouthed Swallow nestlings at NT Pentireglaze submitted by A Swanson and also the Grey Heron striding purposefully along the creek at Hayle Estuary/Ryan’s Field by A Khan.
Thursday brought us an excellent image of a Kestrel in flight at Kynance by Jonathan Warner, who also provided a great photo of a Gannet in flight on Friday alongside Fulmar and Stonechat images submitted by Martin Webb.
On Saturday, with looming grey clouds darkening our skies, Simon Willson managed well to capture the Spotted Flycatcher posing atmospherically at Croft Pascoe.
On Sunday Adam Holmes was making the most of the renewed fine weather to enjoy some sea-watching at St Ives Island and provided some excellent sea-bird in flight images while Martin Webb captured a great photo of a singing male Linnet in full song at Marazion Marsh.
While some great photographs have been submitted to our records team this week my favourite photograph is the Arctic Skua in Mounts Bay taken from a kayak by Rupert Kirkwood, while the Skua itself occupies a relatively small part of the overall frame I loved the instantly recognisable and yet almost abstract backdrop which provides primary focus on the Skua.
Many thanks once again to everyone who has taken the time to submit sighting reports and photographs to our sightings team, it really is greatly appreciated.”
Congratulations again to Rupert. The winning combination of his photographic skills whilst balancing in a kayak have gained him his 4th PotW this year and he tops the leaderboard for the first 6 months of the year. Behind him Gill Fisher, Mark James, Steve Rogers and Martin Webb have 2 with everyone else achieving PotW once only. I wonder what will the next 6 months bring?
