What an amazing week, this first bird "blew my socks off" having it perched in front of me for a while I made a little squeaky noise to get it's attention, it flew straight at me and perched on my 600mm lens hood ( lens hood list is now 5; Barn Owl, Spotted flycatcher, Robin, Kingfisher and Blue Tit) my other body had a 300mm on it and the 3rd was zipped in the Lowpro on the back seat, I tried to get the camera on my phone so I had a record of this astonishing moment, however the bleepy noises the phone made spooked the Owl back to the fence post, which was so disappointing!However; Friday night, Steve, I and Paul Hackett set off on a marathon Owl Prowl around the lanes of Bedfordshire and North Hertfordshire, we got 8 Barn Owls, 7 Tawny Owls a Badger and a herd of Fallow Deer. 3 of the Tawny Owls allowed a very close and prolonged view and Paul was able to digiscope one of them.All of the night shots here are uncropped with Canon EOS1DsMkIII and 300mm f2.8IS + 550EX flash, the first Barn Owl is with the 600mmf4IS on a 1DsMkIIIA huge amount of new Owl shots (and some older images) uploaded to my Flickr this week. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nigelblake/
Its been a busy week processing and preparing images for libraries etc, a task I don't mind when it's rubbish weather!Yesterday however was OK so I ventured out for some fresh air in the afternoon and came home with 600+ fresh Barn Owl shots, what a result! Also I've been out on some more nocturnal forays looking for Tawnies with Steve Blain, we had one real poser on Tuesday it just let us walk around it taking shots, I hope we get the same success later tonight when Paul Hackett is joining us.
Its been a very productive week despite having had my feeder site trashed by vandals, I have shot thousands of images, most not even properly viewed or edited yet!These are a few, the Redwings do seem to be getting tamer as they struggle to find food, they have been demolishing the apples and fruit I have put out for them, and the Robins have posed perfectly on every "christmas card" set I have put up and the Song Thrush has been a show-off too. Steve Blain and I have been out on a couple of "Owl prowls" in the snow, it's been fantastic, last night we got 5 Tawny owls, 2 Barn Owls and several Muntjac deer again, one of the Tawnies posed for both of us to get great images of it.
The cold weather is here to stay by the looks of it, the forecast today (7th Jan) suggests it will last at least another 10-14 days! The birds at the feeder site always look pleased to see me, the Sing Thrush and Blackbirds are staying within a few feet as I top up the food stock, and not flying off like they usually would. Steve Blain and I went out on an Owl prowl and got some great views and images of a Tawny Owl, also saw lots of Muntjac. I have been out with the cameras all day every day since Christmas, the Fens have been great for Barn Owl, Geese, Kestrels and Whooper Swans. I also had a great session with a pair of Stonechats and a juvenile Grey Heron who, because everywhere is iced-up, was catching mice in the rough grass. Lots of new images on my Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/nigelblake/
