Called up yesterday to Surprise Ian, and hopefully to see the Purple Heron, sadly it did show while I was in the hide but to far away to get a nice picture :(
Anyway here are the pictures I did get.
Purple Heron
Buzzards
Not sure what this is.
Shovler
And I will call this the Road Runner :)
Jim
My Pictures
My Fbook Group
Missed this Cormorant picture
Hi Jim,
It was nice to meet you. When we had separated on Saturday a number of our Group including myself heard a Cetti's Warbler on and off for approx 10 minutes on the causeway, but it remained hidden unfortunately and even though we could here it's beautiful song, we couldn't get any views of that bird.
Regards,
Ian.
We also saw an Otter from the Causeway hide.
Hi Ian, it was nice meeting up with you and your group, I missed you when you left the Causeway hide and not knowing if you carried on to the end of the Causeway or back towards the centre, I headed back then decided to head home before the traffic built up on the M6 had a clear run all the way home, had an hour then went to bed for a while before picking my Sister up at Manchester airport after midnight so I was glad to grab that sleep or it would have been a very long day.
Good that you got to see the Purple Heron at least, James. I understand it's been there for some time now. Your duck looks like a Gadwall (m) to me.
PS I've been a few times this year, Ian, and still not seen an otter there, so you did better than me for your first trip in years. Maybe next time (which should be soon).
__________
Nige Flickr
It has been there a while now Nige, and your right it is a Gadwall I just looked it up thanks, I have seen the otters quit a few times but only the heads while they were in the water sadly I did miss them fully out of the water a couple of months back just a few mins to late :)
Lovely set of shots, Jim. The Purple Heron in flight is a cracker. I often feel we can get too caught up in portrait shots and I do really like to see a distant shot of a bird in its enviroment.
My bird photos HERE
Cheers Paul, I don’t show my pictures in portrait unless they were taken in that orientation I’m more a landscape shooter lol and it was a long way off even with the 600mm lens
Apologies, Jim. I meant to say close up 'portrait' type shots (as opposed to portrait orientation). It's nice to be able to fill the frame with a bird but I do feel that often the background can have a positive effect on the shot and give a good feeling of the overall scene (as it does with your Purple Heron in flight).
James G said:Called up yesterday to Surprise Ian, and hopefully to see the Purple Heron, sadly it did show while I was in the hide but to far away to get a nice picture :(
I disagree with you here. I think they’re great shots. :-)
I’ve added a shot of Swans in flight from the weekend to illustrate my thoughts. I could have cropped the shot to bits but I do think that sometimes it’s nice just to let the scenery help show the birds as they were actually seen. :-)
I know what you mean Paul, if I take a picture and the subject is far away I will more often crop the picture so you can see the subject more then what the picture looked like in real life, so I am cheating a little doing it this way and thinking about it is wrong but that’s what I have been doing since I started taking pictures but from now on I will look at them in a different way.
Cheers Jim