Gorgeous Waders inc. WOOD SAND

As I didn't have time to go to Black Hole Marsh to see the 2 Wood Sandpipers and the Sanderling last night, I got up bright and early and headed to the marsh for a couple of hours before work this morning (I start at 8:00...). I was disappointed to see that only one Wood Sandpiper remained but I did manage some (pretty lame) pics of it. Firstly here's a couple of closer crops of pics from the last post:

Dunlin

Ringed Plover

And another of a Dunlin:

Zzzzzzzz

And here's a couple of the Wood Sandpiper from this morning. Taken somewhere between 06:00 and 07:00, the light was TERRIBLE as I was shooting (more or less) into the Sun. I managed to avoid the dreaded silhouette via manual camera settings though so it could have been worse.

A Snipe came fairly close but the light was terrible for this pic too. The water was nice and calm though so I'll post it anyway :)

And I have a Sparrowhawk to thank for scaring a Lapwing fairly close to the Island Hide this evening:

And finally here's a pic of some Ringed Plover and Dunlin flying:

Stunning Reflections...

I gave Black Hole Marsh a quick visit this evening and it is absolutely brilliant there at the moment. Ideal water levels and plenty of waders about; nothing rare but it's satisfying to get images like these... If only they were closer though! Most of the following pics are heavily cropped. I've only put up ones which lend themselves to reflection type crops; there are portrait type shots which I'll hopefully post tomorrow. If I had more time I'd clone out some of the 'clutter' on the surface of the water for a couple of these but this'll do for now:

Ringed Plover coming in to land

Green Sandpiper

Ringed Plover looking rather proud!

Ringed Plover

And the following two I quite like:

Dunlin

Ringed Plover and Dunlin

More Black Hole Marsh Beauties (update 2 of 2)

Lovely waders at Black Hole Marsh from the last week or so:

Black Tailed Godwit

Black Tailed Godwit

Redshank

Dunlin

Little Ringed Plover

Ringed Plover

Redshank

Redshank

Dunlin

NIGHTJAR Semi-Decent (??) pic

On patch. Amazing birds.

And despite what this looks like, this was taken at night. It was dark to the extent that I could only just see the bird. It looks 'better' because I know what I'm doing with my camera gear on full manual mode... I'm pretty chuffed with how this came out!

Bird Photography at Black Hole Marsh (part 1 of 2)

Here's a few pics from the last week at Black Hole Marsh. They haven't made the blog until now due to rarities taking priority. I'll post some more of various waders tomorrow but here's some Sandpiper pics for now:

Green Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper

Common Sandpiper

Common Sandpiper

Pics of a PATCH NIGHTJAR

I went to 'the site' with Tim Wright last night and was successful in seeing one of the Nightjar. Keen to give them a go with the camera I headed up again this evening. I was hoping for them to fly against the sky so I could've taken a decent silhouette type pic but I had no such luck, I did however manage these:

Terrible pics but it is a NIGHTjar... and it's also a lifer so it was nice to see my first one so close to where I live.

Pec Sand gets closer at Black Hole Marsh...

... but unfortunately the light was TERRIBLE, with me shooting nearly into the direction of the Sun. It's such a shame that the Pec didn't join the other Sandpipers which were posing nicely on the other side of Island Hide, showing almost perfectly in the Sun.

I took hundreds of pics of other birds today but they're to a higher standard (due to the conditions) so I'll post them separately.