Great Northern Divers

light and angle make  the difference between a nice shot and a better shot -- water can be a very exacting medium -- the last two shots show the differences between the two birds - sometimes aggressive to each other at other times they seem to socialize -- at one stage one was calling with head down and bill open in aggressive pose tot eh second bird

Great Northern Divers

the two juvenile Great Northern Divers (Common Loons) at Covenham Res were eating more than their weight in fish today -- every time they came up their necks were an odd shape with swallowed fish --

Water Pipit

this flighty species has always eluded me and even today this bird was a real difficult subject -- the light was also very tricky with the white water and the bird in deep shade on a dark green res bank

Grey Wagtail

wader and wildfowl spectacles

very difficult to get over the impression of the spectacle of big flocks of birds in a static image; huge numbers of Lapwings and Golden Plovers on the Humber this winter -- up to 10,000 of each around Alkborough of late but 20,000 Goldies in two other places

Smew with a difference

Curlew

Drake Smew on the patch back for another winter

never going to be easy -- its wary but amazing how many people seem to think that by standing in the open with a camera (gun) pointing at the bird it will come in close -- some field craft here and plenty of mud as usual but it was late in the afternoon when the sun had gone down

7D cropping

first drake Smew with no crop -- second image cropped and with neat image pass and 100% sharpening ---same image cropped but without neat image -- its noisy even at 400ISO --

Cormorant and 7D the good

still baffled by this camera --this is the good side -- BUT the meter seems to be over-sensitive, its certainly noisy and all images need some Neat Image treatment plus sharpening -- these have had quite a bit of work -- the head shot is a crop from one of the others showing just how big a crop you can get from a decent sized image -- all with 500 and 1.x

male Hen Harrier

one of my favourite birds -- not close of course as is obvious from the  images but now I have its hunting area sussed out maybe better luck next time

bathing Merlin

well it kept trying but every time it settled in a puddle on this track up came some dog walkers, ignoring me there with a camera pointing at it and walked past flushing the bird! nice to be considerate

Barn Owl

low light, low cloud, 7D and 400 5.6 320th/ sec hand held -- and it shows

Shorelarks

this flock were quite vocal with the two adults making some of the calls I last heard on the tundra at Varanger in June -- maybe should have done a seawatch!

Snow Buntings and Twite

spent most of the day on the Lincs coast trying to get some images of these delightful birds -- some success but the phrase could do better always seems to be relevant

not so Common Loon

in the 40 years I have been watching the local pits I have seen just 8 Great Northern Divers but the latest was in Feb and April this year so it was a good job that someone was out birding this morning (my excuse I was editing the 2008 Lincs Bird Report) so after a quick phone call I managed to get a few shots of this juv before it decided that the pits were not the place for it and it flew off in advance of a heavy rain  and hail storm --also on the patch on the Humber today 15+ C Scoter, 2 Scaup, Bonxie west (ND) adult Med Gull Chowder and a Peregrine on the bridge tower this evening so a decent haul in the rather less than pleasant weather

local Whoopers

a family party of 2 adult and 3 juv Whoopers on the patch mid morning and then as the heavens opened again a flock of 16 came from the west and went east over the Humber bridge

oddments

the Teal flock flushed by one dog and one owner at least the waders were flushed by a Peregrine

Black-tails

I watch them and count them so often you get to love them eventually! a good percentage of the wintering colour ringed birds seen again today

Green-winged Teal moult

this drake still looks virtually the same as it did 3 weeks ago with several brown upper flank feathers whereas 95% of the drake Eurasian Teal present have moulted into full plumage over the same time period which seems somewhat odd?

Dark-bellied x Pale-bellied Brent Geese ?

While looking for the Black Brant today (failed to find it again) came across this family party that appears to comprise a very aggressive adult male Dark-bellied Brent Goose, female Pale-bellied Brent and 3 hybrid juveniles -- I watched them for about an hour and there seemed no doubt that they were a family unit -- what was more surprising though was the fact that there was at least one other goose with the party that appeared to be a hybrid with intermediate characters but was not a juvenile and so could have been a 2cy bird -- it was close to the family all the time and appeared to consort with them even joining the male in chasing other geese -- any comments would be appreciated at my email address

Marsh Harrier

a young male from today

Barn Owl

Red-necked Phalarope comparisons

7D v 1DIII -- guess which is which -- all have been Neat Imaged -- will post some real tests when I get chance; similar conditions today both cameras with 500 f4 and no converter -- low ISO noise on 7D at 500 ISO looks bad strangely but IQ of 1D seems to be winning the day

Wigeon 7D

the sort of thing I envisage using it for with the 1.6 and possible large crop for Id purposes

Marsh Harriers on test

as some may have noticed several of the last uploads excepting the Brents have been with a 7D -- have had little time to really test it or even read the manual but some of these harrier shots look promising

a few more Red-necked Phalaropes

muddy boots, tripod, trousers, bum and camera but hey ho -- a tendency to just get frame fillers fails to capture the bird and its habitat -- the flight shot was at 08:00 at a 400th sec at 640 ISO but its different!

hrota

at least 5 adults and a single first-winter birds in the Pyes Hall flock today

flocks

including the largest Stock Dove gathering I have ever seen; 500+ birds with 355 spotted out in the lower shot

patch tick Phalarope

after Spoonbill Red-necked Phalarope was one of the commonest birds I had never seen on the local patch so many thanks to Ian S for the call about this bird feeding on Chowder Ness this afternoon; presumably a gale victim it is in moult to first-winter with some grey crown feathers coming through plus the new grey scaps; it was feeding for a while in a narrow channel and pulling out lots of flat-worms before flying to the shore where it was flushed by the inevitable dog walker

extreme Whoopers and Green-winged Teal

when this family came by I had both converters on the 500 trying to get a little bit better images of the Green-winged Teal and was in manual focus mode --amazed that they were roughly OK

Peregrine, Black-tail et al

images from 14.11

a few more Bittern action shots

what a privilege to watch this bird feeding for 4 hours today; it caught 3 big fish and 2-3 small ones in that time; look like perch to me from the stripy sides but I am no fish expert

Snow Bunting

came across two birds today on a survey -- its a place where I expect to find a Desert Warbler one day but then again I have been birding there since 1969 without finding anything more exciting than a Great Grey Shrike and a Red-foot so maybe its not such a good place for asian vagrants