A Bit More From The New Toy and You Can't Argue with Xenophon

It was a lovely sunny day today, just the right conditions to get some more practice in with the new camera. There haven't been many birds about in the last couple of days but I decided to have a quick look up Axe Cliff this morning just the same. The good news is that all the wheat as been harvested and there are acres and acres of stubble, lets just hope some of it is left over the winter as last year it was all quickly ploughed and resown. As expected it was very quiet but it was nice to see a large flock of Linnets in one of the fields. I wonder if the flock reach the 900+ that were up there a few years back... It's got a long way to go!

This is about half the present flock (c45 birds in this)

The photos from the new canera/lens take heavy cropping quite well too.

In the early afternoon I went over to Lower Bruckland Ponds to find a few things to point it at, both small and quick and large and slow.

Even though the lens has a whopping 3.5m minimum focusing distance it still does a decent job of dragonflies, like this Common Darter

Large and slow... a doddle.

Little Grebe with psychedelic background!

 I didn't get much opportunity to try small birds moving in bushes but eventually a passing flock of Long-tailed Tits obliged.

 As for birds in flight, I slightly overstretched myself trying to get Swallows and House Martins. I haven't got the hang of tracking them quickly enough, I suppose it will come with practice, this shot of a House Martin is my best effort. As for larger slower subjects...

This is the type of shot I've been longing to take, even if it it's only a Mallard.

 Why can't you argue with Xenophon? Well, as you probably know Xenophon was an Athenian historian and soldier (c.430- 354 BC). He wrote a treatise called 'On Horsemanship' and said:

"A horse is a thing of beauty... none will tire of looking at him as long as he displays himself in his splendour."

I wholeheartedly agree and if you don't feel the same, let me persuade you. Again, repeat after me...

A horse is a thing of beauty... none will tire of looking at him

as long as he displays himself ...

... in his splendour!

Well he had just woken up, bless him!

Short-billed Dowitcher

Obviously Short-billed Dowitcher would be a lifer for me but I didn't really fancy being at a big twitch (I still suffer horrific flashbacks of a certain twitch in Cornwall) so I decided to leave it a few days until this morning to go to Lodmoor and try for it. I did the right thing. There were only about ten people on site and although it did get a bit boring constantly scanning the reeds and sedges waiting for it to emerge it did so within about an hour, so can't complain at that really. It was pretty close too, but wouldn't stay out of the juncus and in view for very long at all. Here's a couple of digiscoped shots of it. A bit blurry I'm afraid due to the gloomy weather (mostly).

In this one I managed to get the foreground nicely in focus and not the bird.

 Still, you can see that short bill it's named after.

In the above two shots you can see the dark cap contrasting heavily with the supercillium and the 'tiger-striped' tertials which unlike the 'short bill' are the distinguishing features.

This is an attempt with my new DSLR and 400mm lens, obviously it doesn't have the reach of digiscoping but I'm happy with it considering the distance and light. I actually purchased the camera hoping to get a few decent flight/action shots of birds as both the super-zoom and digiscoping can't cope with much movement in the subject. I haven't had much chance to try this yet, although I did go down to the yacht club to try and photograph some gulls although there weren't  many there at all. I only had two adults and one juvenile fly over in the half hour or so I was there. I'm not sure where they were, stealing chips off tourists I guess.

These were my best first efforts.

I also took a few test shots of a Wheatear that was on the beach, a Pigeon on my garden and a Dipper in a fallen tree on the River Coly.

 

It's not at all shabby on butterflies either, well, as long as you stand about 15ft away!

It's been lovely to see a big increase in the amount of Small Tortoiseshells on the wing in the last couple of weeks.

Spotted Crake - Patch Tick

I couldn't get out yesterday afternoon/evening to look for the Spotted Crake that had been seen on the river earlier in the day due to work commitments. So as is usual in these circumstances I was there at first light. Well not quite first light as it was already sort of light when I arrived at 6.15.  I joined Gav who was already in place in the Tower Hide scanning the edges of the reeds and rushes on the far bank from. After around thirty minutes of the bird being nowhere to be seen Steve arrived and almost immediately said "There it is!" I don't know what it is about Steve that causes birds to lie in wait until he arrives and then leap out into view. We had reasonably good views as it made its way along the muddy edges but the light was appalling, there wasn't even any point in trying to get photos. I tried to get a bit of video in which you'll see how poor the visibility was. In the first video the general din at the beginning is Gav 'quietly' leaving the hide. The second video is an 'action sequence' in which the Spotted Crake is hounded by a rather territorial Curlew.

Both myself and Gav returned to the Tower hide this evening hoping for a photo opportunity in the better light, we didn't get it because we dipped.  You can see photos of the bird on Phil's blog here.