More images online

Neither of these are new images, but the reason for puting them up here is really to plug my Flickr gallery where you can find an ever increasing selection of my work, and some of my older images that have been reconverted from RAW files and re-edited, you can find them all just here http://www.flickr.com/photos/nigelblake/

Fighting Coots

These Coots have been keeping me occupied while the Herons have stood on one leg or the other doing very little; but actually getting the Coots fighting in a photographable situation is quite difficult, more often than not they pack up scrapping just as you pull focus on them. However this time I got them..... just a shame the light disappeared a the same time!

Herons again

Its nice to have a Heronry in a nearby country park, these birds are very used to people being close-by and behave very normally going about the daily preeening, washing, fishing, and nesting. I had done the flight shots of them with nesting material that I wanted to get this year, so now the visits are more for getting those shots as they while the day away waiting for the eggs to hatch.

Day's end

Late afternoon when the joggers, dog-walkers and other human visitors leave, a few other creatures come out to clear-up the dropped fast food, bread and grain that the Ducks have left, this Brown rat, after feeding its face, climbed out on some low branches for a drink, and the Great Crested Grebes just posed in the reflections of the setting sun.

Wet feet

Here we have some more town park birds, Canada Geese, Pochard, Coot and Tufted Duck.

Spashing out at Swan Lake

One of the main tasks I had set myself this year was to get down to shooting new images of common species, not just to replace older shots, but to get them on higher resolution digital files than those I have in stock. I had forgotten just how enjoyable it is to shoot things like Mute Swans and Coots, and to be able to work with birds that are used to having people near-by, in this case at a town park, means that its easy to get good action and behaviour shots.

Little Grebe, big poser

Another session with the Little Grebe, what a joy to find one that allows close approach, and is at a site that is suitable for shooting at a very low level.

Little Grebe

Tachybaptus ruficollis, what a great scientific name this Little Grebe has! Not an easy bird to do photographically, usually very wary and off like a shot before you get focus on them, so its a treat to find one that is unusually tolerant of close approach. Getting the low angle shots again meant spending a fair amount of time on my belly in the mud and wet.

The White crowned church roof

Its been there for an age now, and single handedly funded loads of work of Cley's house of god without succumbing to a guided tour of a Sparrowhawk's digestive system (perhaps there's nothing mysterious about the way god moves at all when there's a jingle of dosh in the collection box!).
So now, without the crowds it was a good chance for another visit to photograph the White crowned Sparrow, a vagrant from across the pond, it showed off quite nicely too.