A Bit of Patch Birding

Early this morning (Wednesday) I actually got out to do a spot of patch birding. I went to Colyford Common and then Black Hole Marsh. At Colyford Common there were 2 Greenshank, 2 Green Sandpipers, 3 Common Sandpipers, and 2 Lapwings. On Black Hole Marsh there was just the one Wood Sandpiper, 7 Ringed Plovers, 13 Dunlin and a few more Common and Green Sandpipers.

The two Greenshank at Colyford Common were showing nicely on the small scrape, near enough for a few photos although the morning sun was pretty unforgiving. They were very active too with one constantly chasing the other away.

Usually... Running

Rarely... Standing Still.
( If you enlarge this not only will you be 'amazed by the quality' but you'll also see that that brown haze on the water is made up of millions of small flies)

These two photos 'clearly' show the reason for all the squabbling,
plenty of fish to be had, well, enough for one anyway.

A Lapwing passes up the several million small morsels all around it in favour of something a bit juicier.

There's almost always a lovely Stock Dove or two to be seen at Colyford Common.

I took both my Sony W300 and the Fuji F30 along this morning, however, there wasn't too much opportunity for a side by side comparison shot with the Greenshank being so active. Fortunately another bird, a very large and very slow bird, stood right in the middle of the scrape for an age allowing me to take two almost identical shots. I don't know about you but I can't see any appreciable differences really apart from the colour tone being a bit cooler in the Fuji image.

Sony W300

Fuji F30