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Red Deer Rut at Chasewater

It was still dark when I left the house this morning, just a short drive to Chasewater in Staffordshire to see if I could find any Red Deer. It’s Rutting Season, so hoped to get some views of testosterone fuelled Stags.

Couldn’t believe my luck! As soon as I started to walk along a path through the heath area the well known large Stag appeared in front of me. I followed him for a while and even accidentally got within a few feet, luckily with a fence separating us. I stalked him for a while and could see a great shot through the trees with the sun lighting just one of his eyes so quickly grabbed a snap.

{Click image for a higher resolution, click Flickr Link in caption to view photo on Flickr}
Eye Light
Eye Light – D810, AF-S 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, f/6.3, ISO1400, 1/125sec – {Flickr Link}

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Sparrow in a Flap

The Sparrows and Blue Tits are coming to the Reflection Pool. It needs to be modified a little and lowered as I can’t use my popup hide as it’s too high. However, I did get this shot by leaving the camera on a tripod and firing the shutter remotely.

It’s not a perfect picture as I’d rather have a larger Depth of Field as the front log isn’t in focus, but the Sparrows head is (almost) in focus.

This Sparrow as a bit of a strange tuft on it’s head too, almost like it’s raising an eyebrow.

{Click image for a higher resolution, click Flickr Link in caption to view photo on Flickr}
Female House Sparrow In A Flap
In a flap – D810, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 @ 300mm, f/9, ISO720, 1/200sec – {Flickr Link}

Waning Gibbous at 93% Visibility

As some may know, I have a fascination of the night sky so you can imagine how gutted I was getting up at 3:30am a few nights back to have quite thick fog obstructing the Super Blood Moon Eclipse. Luckily, I could see the red Moon through the fog quite clearly, however, it wasn’t worth pointing the camera at as it couldn’t pick any detail out.

So tonight with the sky totally clear, I thought I’d try out the Nikon TC-20e III 2x Teleconverter on my Nikon 300mm f/2.8 VR II. This Teleconverter takes the lens to a 600mm. Teleconverters are known to loose detail, however, the Nikon ones are known to work very well with the Nikon 300mm f/2.8 lenses and this shot clearly shows that there is still a high amount of quality detail hitting the camera sensor.

This has been cropped in quite tight too. I think the combination of D810, 300mm f/2.8 VR II and TC-20e III is a winner, certainly when it comes to a very bright object like the Moon.

Anyone else think it looks a bit Egg shaped tonight?

{Click image for a higher resolution, click Flickr Link in caption to view photo on Flickr}
Waning Gibbous (93%)
Egg Moon – D810, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 with TC-20e III @ 500mm, f/11, ISO64, 1/50sec – {Flickr Link}

Temporary Reflection Pool Setup

Update: Since this post I have now built a large permanent Reflection Pool. Blog post available HERE.

You may remember a post a few days back where I said that I’d bought a Greenhouse Tray. Well it was to build a temporary Reflection Pool in the garden.

I set it up tonight, excuse the photos as it was starting to get dark when I finished (6:30pm and it’s starting to get dark!!! Grrrrr!).

As you can see from the photos the tray is mounted on some DIY A-Frames and I’ve made a shallow area in which I hope the birds will visit. At the back out of sight I’ve put some Suet and Peanuts to try and tempt them. It’s setup near the bird feeders, so hopefully, it’ll be an easy temptation.

The only thing that worries me is that the tray isn’t long enough and either I can’t fit a full reflection in or you’ll see the front edge of the tray in shot.

DIY Reflection Pool
DIY Reflection Pool
Shallow end
Shallow end
Food to tempt the birds
Food to tempt the birds



I’ll leave it for a day or two for the birds to get used to it and then see what I get.

Here’s an idea on what a Reflection Pool gives, again, not great quality as it was really bad light.

Reflection Pool
Reflection Pool
Reflection Pool
Reflection Pool

WINNER: Nikon Facebook Cover Photo of the Week

craig rogers photo of the week
You can imagine how chuffed I am at winning another Nikon award just 3 days after my Kingfisher photo was Photo of the Day.

This time, it’s the picture of the Feral Kitten (that is now living in the house with us) that showed up in the garden that Nikon have chosen for their Facebook Cover photo of the week.

This photo really was “right place, right time” and a quick recompose and opening up of the aperture gave me this cute and funny photo.

View the photo on Nikon’s Facebook page

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