Arnie Monteith Photo: Wildlife of St Ives

I have just got back from a family holiday to St Ives in Cornwall and thought I would share with you some of the photos I took over the week.

When I thought of St Ives and wildlife I thought seagulls, seagulls and more seagulls. When I got there however their were much more varied bird species which, despite all being very common, certainly made for great subjects to photograph.

One of the birds which I particularly enjoyed photographing were the House Sparrows which had made home in a pile of unused lobster pots near the fishing boats. A lot of the birds were very dirty and often their feathers weren't well aligned.

This particular bird was extremely scraggly

The joy of working with these birds as well was that they were used to human company due to living in a very busy place which made photographing them a lot easier.

They also made for great silhouette shots with the ropes and wiring from the lobster pots:

Here the setting sun made a nice creamy red coloured backdrop for the photo

Another great bird which I found enjoyable to photograph was the Turnstones' who were very friendly. I found them foraging in the rock pools, there were around 10 at one site. I found that low angled shots worked well with these birds meaning that I got very wet and sandy... but I got some good photos so who cares.

One morning I was very privaliged to spot a group of around 6 dolphins around 50 metres out to sea. They were jumping out of the water and playing with each other. It was a real joy and something which I definatley did not expect to see. I took some photos although they did not come out great as they were so far away:

In this case they actually jumped completely out of the water which was amazing to watch

Obviously as it was Cornwall there were indeed plenty of Seagulls. Mobbing people for their chips and for their pasty . Although we see them as annoying birds I did enjoy photographing them not only because I could get close but also because of the way that their eyes stand out from the rest of their body. I hadn't noticed this before but they really do have beautiful eyes.