The sun came back out and so did the camera! There was a bit of haze high in the sky which was creating a really nice diffused light so I went back out and sat in the pop-up hide for an hour.
Apart from the usual House Sparrows and Blue Tit, a Nuthatch turned up along with another Starling.
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For about 10 minutes today, the large flock House Sparrows we have in the garden were raiding the Suet Feeder like a bunch of looters. So I thought I’d try and get a shot of one flying into land. This female is the best of the shots coming into land feet first.
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There is a huge Oak Tree in the field opposite the house and a large flock of Starlings roost there every evening.
With all the food available in the garden with our many feeders and various food available you’d think they’d come heavy mobbed to feed. They do, but only occasionally and today three came for a very brief visit to snack on fatballs.
A few minutes later, they were gone again, but I managed to get a shot of this one.
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This often heard but not seen bird lives inside dense reeds. I wasn’t there to photograph this, I was sat inside my Bag Hide waiting patiently for a Kingfisher to turn up. For the 2nd evening at RSPB Middleton Lakes, nothing. However, a consolation prize was this Juvenile Water Rail that came out of the reeds for a brief moment.
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If you mount a normal lens backwards on a camera body, it becomes a great closeup Macro lens. If you think how a lens works, it’s no real surprise that this is the case.
A lens captures a large scene and projects it onto a small sensor (or film!) inside the camera. Therefore, by mounting it backwards, it does the opposite by projecting something small magnified onto the sensor.
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On Sunday, I was out in the rare spell of sunshine to try (again) to capture some Housemartins and Swallows in flight.
There was a young Blackbird in the garden that really didn’t mind my presence. I got within 4 metres of it and it was happy for me to snap away. Then a young Bluetit arrived and the shot was helped with the fact that one of the cats was in the garden so it was more concerned about watching it than watching me so managed to get a good shot of it.
I also did manage at least one shot of a Housemartin in flight.
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