Some unexpected Patch Bronze

It's unusual to get decent (loose use of the term) birds for the patch this time of year as we are in the inevitable Summer lull in terms of bird movement, but 3 Tufted Duck at Lower Bruckland Ponds on 25th was an unexpected opportunity to take a few bird snaps. There were 2 males & one female; despite there already being a one-day Spring bird at Seaton Marshes it was good to see some more patch Tufties.

I have a typically busy week ahead with business trips to various countries each day of the week. This whole hopping on a plane every few days is going to become a lot more arduous soon...

The above video is best viewed full screen and in HD - you can do this by either clicking the YouTube button or Full Screen button at the bottom right of the clip menu.

Juv Grey Wagtail

The River Coly always does well for breeding Grey Wagtails. I spent a few minutes photographing a juv along with an attentive adult:

And come closer crops to show off more of the feather detail:

Canon 5DSR - finally a new camera!

One of my new cameras arrived! About time too as my old kit had all sold leaving me temporarily without a camera... I bought a 5DSR for one main purpose - high resolution for close-up shots with plenty of 'crop-ability' for long distance shots. The camera has a 50.6 MP sensor which is the highest pixel density of any DSLR currently available. It's not great in low light, it's not fast, it's not even classified as being 'professional' equipment, but with distance being one of too main problems with wildlife photography, this camera will help overcome that. A 7Dii provides almost identical performance in terms of a 1.6x crop setting on the 5DSR sensor, but without the added benefit of the extra pixels if a subject is fairly close. The 5DSR suits both scenarios.

DSLR & lenses cannot compete with the high focal lengths on Bridge cameras in terms of pics straight from the camera, but the higher performance sensors allow a lot of post-production cropping of images to give a 'closer' view of the intended subject. The way things are developing with sensor technology, I think in perhaps 10 years time the big white Canon lenses which some wildlife photographers lug around at the moment will no longer be necessary (not to the same extent anyway). DSLR as a system may even have ceased development by then - who knows?!

For the time being, the Canon 5DSR is the right back-up camera body for my needs (now the other camera needs to hurry up and get here) - the below pics give two versions of the same images and this illustrates the cropping potential of images with very high pixel counts:

I'm very much looking forward to seeing what I can achieve with this camera come Autumn time...

Garden Life

15-06-16 A quick visit to my parents' place in Colyton yielded great views of Goldfinch and also a Siskin (a rather nice surprise):

More Odonata

A very busy few weeks work-wise for me at the moment so here's a couple of pics of odonata to peruse. I will try and get around to posting a proper update at some point as there are a couple of things of interest on patch currently.

Pics of a posing Black-tailed Skimmer

This absolute stunner of a teneral female Black-tailed Skimmer posed beautifully for a good 20 mins at Lower Bruckland Ponds earlier in the week. I like all dragonflies, but these are definitely one of my favourites from the perspective of aesthetics and photography potential:

One of my outlets has just ordered a batch of greeting cards with this design! I think it's quite pretty :)

Posing Woodlark

Here are the aforementioned pics of Woodlark taken during a recent visit to Dorset:

TREE PIPIT performing beautifully in flight

A bit of recent birding in Dorset yielded fantastic views of Tree Pipit and Woodlark (which I'll save for the next post), with a nice side cast of Hobby & Redstart. Here's a couple pics of one of the Tree Pipits - I just love the way they fall out of the sky with wings opened up in an almost kite-like fashion (the toy kite that is). Great to watch:

Also my Canon 5D3 which I put an ad up for towards the end of May is now £1150; this is a MASSIVE saving on a new one. I need to get rid of it to make way for something new & different...

Bird of the Month - May (the PELICAN)

Well it had to be didn't it really; I didn't manage to see the Lammergeier (/buzzard/drone/sheep) so the Dalmatian Pelican is an easy #1 for May.

Great-spotted Cuckoo - Bird in Flight shots

I'm still working most of the way around the clock at the moment so this post is going to have to be a couple of archive shots from mid-May of the Portland GSCuckoo. The bird is still there and is now into it's 3rd week since arrival. Both images are massively cropped so the quality is low, but flight shots of rare birds are always nice.

I've updated my 'info' section to the right to include a little employment info as people seem to ask pretty frequently. Unfortunately I'll soon be updating it again to change my age to quarter of a century... I like being busy with work and would probably be bored beyond any sense or sanity if I didn't have work commitments to balance with the hobby (I don't have too many family/home commitments yet). But damn, time just disappears and 'older' people tell me it only gets worse, so thanks for that!

Next post should be a new blog header! There are certainly a few contenders eligible for 'Bird of the Month' for May - there were some fantastic species seen!