Last week has been my first foray into the world of Birding Photography with a DSLR. Phone scoping is all well and good but it takes a while to setup I’ve found, so I’ve gone and grabbed a cheap cannon EOS 1000d and a semi-decent 70-300mm zoom lens and went out.
I’m not a professional photographer by any stretch of the imagination but talking this out learning along the way I don’t think I have done all too badly.
My first visit last week was to the West Midlands Bird Club Belvide Reserve as 6am and got my first ever Crane, apparently the first one to land and spend time after a number of years.
At Belvide apart from my lifer in the form of a common crane I had a total of 54 species including Whimbrel, Yellow Wagtail, Hobby, Lesser Whitethroat & Common Tern. Here are a few more images from that day…
Next up it was the turn of the brilliant RSPB Middleton Lakes reserve. It was playing host to a Savi’s Warbler that week and even though I was there for it on this particular morning it never materialised for yours truly.
Never mind, I still had a total of 65 species I could count on including… Bittern, Common Sandpiper, Common Tern, Great White Egret, Greenshank, Lesser Whitethroat, Ring and Little Ring Plover, Redshank and the usual Red Breasted Goose.
Here are a few images took in my visit…
Finally I paid a visit on the late afternoon after my trip to Belvide to my local patch of Ladywalk where I recorded a total of 50 species including Redshank, Little Egret plenty of Warblers and a Barn Owl. Some images from that visit…
I had tried to get the yellow bill of this blackbird but unfortunately it moved its head just before taking off.
That’s about everything I have for you now. But I think my Bird and Nature photography is slightly Improving. I did find this Link to a few blog posts by Mike Atkinson about Bird Photography. So let’s see what this week brings.
Thank you for indulging me again.
Phillip
