Monday 31 May 2010

Bank holiday, rubbish weather!

Bank holidays seem to always coincide with dull, wet, grey and windy weather, especially when you have things arranged, and this Bank holiday is no exception. OK, the weather didn't hinder me from fitting new blinds in my daughters living room admittedly.
However I have 2 other feeders to shoot for the RSPB catalogue (I finished the first batch a couple of weeks back) one is a feeder guardian, this is a mesh cage that protects small birds from predators while they feed, as well as preventing larger birds from scoffing all the food; these are not that simple to shoot for several reasons. Firstly the light has to be right, bright enough to get adequate depth of field and shutter speed to have the product sharp enough and to freeze the birds movement as well, but not so bright that the shadows created by the mesh fall across the birds and make for a confusing image.
Also, despite having one of these at the feeder site that the birds are in and out of constantly, they get very wary of a bright shiny new one and their visits are brief, to say the least! When they do come to the feeder they also seem to know how to 'wind me up' by feeding with their backs to me as well! Tomorrow looks wet too, I only need one good day!
I have had another churchyard session with the Spotted Flycatchers though, they are real posers, and so was the female Kestrel I snapped while going over to see my mum, not often that you can just stop the car right beside one and rattle off about 40 frames!





1 comment:

Katie said...

Lovely photos!

Re: the cage thingy, we've got one. The idea was to keep Rooks, Jackdaws and Pheasants from scoffing all the food.

Turns out I should really have bought the smaller mesh size - Pheasants stick their heads through the mesh (they can reach the food even if you put only a tiny heap in the middle). The Rooks and Jackdaws seem put off, but a Magpie squeezes inside quite easily!

That said, a pair of Yellowhammers are quite happy to feed inside it, which is OK by me!