You might remember this photo from a short while ago where I thought it was a Chiffchaff, but as I’d never heard it’s distinctive “Chiffchaff” song I was in debate whether it was it’s almost identical Willow Warbler.
Early this morning, not too long after sunrise, I finally heard, for the first time that easily identifiable call of the Chiffchaff.
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Had some fly overs today from a lot of Buzzards.
I managed to photograph this one and when I edited it, I noticed some grass sticking out. However, when I zoomed in, I noticed it had a catch.
It was a long way up in the sky and with only the 300mm on it was still a little too far away, however, you can clearly see in the cropped photo that it’s holding something. At first, I thought it would of been a mouse but then thinking about the size of a Buzzard, it would be bigger than a Mouse, so maybe a Rat or a small Rabbit.
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I’ve been having a few issues capturing footage with the Bushnell camera but all is good now after a swap out. I have, however, been watching through the window and haven’t seen the Male for a while.
The Vixen is regularly visiting through the night which hopefully means her Cubs can be left. As you can see in the first still shot, she’s looking in good condition. No sign of the Cubs yet, but more worryingly, no sign of the Male unless there was a brief showing last night. The second still shot is from a video in that a head appeared briefly before disappearing. I can’t quite tell, but this might be the Male as the neck seems a lot thicker than the Vixen. Now that the Bushnell is back up and running, hopefully he’ll make an appearance tonight.
Today, I found a Mason Bee (sometimes called Mortar Bee) on the floor in the living room. As we have an old house, we do have these Bees in the brickwork, we also have a Bee Hotel for them too.
So after giving it some honey which it drank like it’s life depended on it, well it did! I thought the perfect opportunity to try out the Nikon BR-2A Reversing Ring Adapter that I recently purchased. The adapter, just a few quid, enables you to mount a lens with a 52mm filter thread to your camera body backwards. This turns the lens into a manual Macro lens for super close-ups.
As I own an AF-D 50mm f/1.8 which has an aperture ring (most new lenses don’t), it’s the perfect combo. These 2 shots are just a very quick sample of what you can get out of it. They are not great quality as they are shot with a high ISO as Macro photography demands a lot of light. However, as a cheap alternative to a mega £ Macro lens I think it’s perfect. I recently sold a very old Macro lens from the 1970s as I didn’t use it much, so I replaced it with this cheap alternative. More to come.
Whilst photographing the Parakeets in Abbey Wood, I was surrounded by Hoverflies. I thought to myself that as they don’t move around very quickly, could I actually photograph one in flight.
I had the 300mm with 1.7x Teleconverter on, so at 500mm I could photograph them from a couple of metres away. There’s little chance of the Autofocus being able to focus on something that small, so I had a few attempts and then managed to get this photograph by manually focusing and shooting with a fast shutter speed.
Ok, it’s no masterpiece, but this is a real hard shot to get, especially whilst handholding a D7100 with battery grip and the 300mm f/2.8 with Teleconverter attached.
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Yes, that’s Abbey Wood on the outskirts on London and they have an abundance of wild Ring Necked Parakeets. Nobody really knows why and how, but they seem happy to be there. I was here before Christmas and it was very cold, they still seemed happy enough flying around. There are a few thoughts of how they became settled in the South East, including escaped captive birds and intentionally released, however, I personally think that the warmer climate that the UK is getting means they came here naturally. It’s not just this part of the South East where they can be found, they are appearing in many areas especially the South Coast. There has also been sightings in the Midlands too.
I wasn’t there to photograph the birds, but having a weekend away in London but as took the camera to get some shots. I was woken at about 6:30am on Saturday morning to the sound of a Woodpecker in full hammer mode on a nearby tree. So I grabbed the camera and headed out to find him. As you can see, I found him (quite easily, I just followed the noise). He was high up in a large tree, so couldn’t get a close up photo, but happy with what I got, remembering that I’d only just woke up. I find it hard to function for the first hour every day!
The sunrise light was great so I wandered around snapping a few photos of the Parakeets, again, not the best photos, but as mentioned, I wasn’t there to take the photos so didn’t really have a great deal of time to spend.
The last photo of the Blue Tit just reminded me that you don’t need a great super sharp photo for a photo to work. Whilst waiting about for the Parakeets to fly over (they didn’t) I saw this Blue Tit clinging to a far reached branch and it just made a perfect frame for a shot.
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