College Lake, Tring walk - Friday

Have been wanting to go to here for a while with my friend who has a better camera, but has been put of what seems like at least 50 -100 times.

However finally I managed to go and also had a quick research to see if I could find the best ways to get pictures of flying birds.

First off looking out the window of their house before we went there was a dunnock sitting and pruning itself

At the site feeders were the first thing to see and there were many blue tits, great tits, dunnocks and one female chaffinch, not daring to go on the feeder

Testing for echos

Woah... that was loud!

A dunnock came nice and close for a picture

But of course it placed itself right behind a twig!

A good candidate for the bottoms up thread!

The chaffinch

Got a great tit just about to take off - pic had to lightened slightly

And then it took off

Blue tit on the feeder

And not on the feeder

I don't know if anyone can ID bees from bad photos, but if you can...

Another female chaffinch at some feeders further on

A robin singing its heart out

Trying out a shorter lens and macro

A kestrel suddenly flew overhead

A chiffchaff came nice and close for a singsong and a picture

Check out of the other eye, just in case he looks any different

A pheasant looking through the trees

A close up of a scruffy looking great tit

Another bee

More chiffchaff activity

A shouting coot

A sleeping mallard

Another kestrel hovering above us

Definitely a male!

Another macro shot (can you see the tiny photo bomber?)

 

Some oystercatchers trying to stay hidden among the gulls

A mute swan

Gadwall

Male and female

A wigeon flight scene

Tufted duck

1 of the many black headed gulls

2 crows having a chat with each other

The moon was up... at about 4:30!

A quick flying lapwing

And again

And coming in to land

Just about closing time when we got all the way round but decided to quickly pop to the bird feeders again as they were nearby

First of all a pheasant

The chaffinch was brave enough to get on the feeder this time

Chaffinch and great tit sharing

Back view

Hup... never noticed before that chaffinch females had green backs

Of flies the great tit with a seed in its beak

Blue tit falling off the bird feeder

Phew... just saved itself

Better have a snack to calm the nerves

And off it flew... wow, I actually got a decent flight shot!

And just as the burst finished I got a decent photo of a second-before-landing great tit

I took this magpie with too low a aperture, but after lightening it almost looks like the white parts of it glow in the dark!

And so ended a good day out

Thanks for looking and feel free to make any ID corrections