My other half loves a good coastal walk. So do I for that matter. What she didn't want was for us to drive any great distance to get to a coast.
In rooting around for suitable places to visit, I discovered RSPB St Bees head was just within acceptable range of where we were staying in Ullswater. It had dramatic red sandstone cliffs, nesting bird colonies, and the path looked relatively benign compared to some hairy ones we've walked. It also had the added attraction of the feint, ever so feint possibility of seeing cetaceans. An added bonus worthy of mega brownie points - toilets at St Bees beach car park!!
Journey time was an hour, and it was reasonably easy to get to.
Hah! Cumbria council had other ideas.
A large section of the A595 was shut from west of Keswick all the way to St Bees. Cumbria council also had strange ideas about the number, frequency and accuracy of diversion signs to put out. I had a better chance of stumbling across a very aged Dr Livingstone than come across a diversion sign.
Good old fashioned map reading and seat of the pants navigation eventually brought us, via a very cross country route, to St Bees. It took us 1 1/4 hours.
St Bees is a small town, and it's fairly straightforward to get to its large beach car park. The cost of a day's parking was not outrageous, about £8. Toilets, to side of car park, are free!!!! There were some eating places (cafe), the usual ice cream van, plus play areas for kids.
Getting to the coastal path was dead easy. Head north and follow other walkers or the coast itself.
I wanted to test out my Canon R7, so lugged it, and the attached weighty Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary beast along.
I've more or less settled on AF settings that suit my style of photography and works for me. AF Servo settings are
Case 3.
Tracking Sensitivity: -2
Accel./deccel. Tracking: -2
Eye and animal tracking are normally turned on. However, I turn this feature off on many an occasion, as firstly, it is very easy to fool/confuse the AI software; and secondly, the AI tracking software and AF Servo software can get in each other's way.
Oh, I also took my relatively heavy monopod, and new (heavyish) quick release camera attachment.
The coast path, when you first join it (go past playground and skirt caravan park) rises reasonably steeply, but not unduly so.
Once you get to the top of the cliffs, the walk itself is quite benign. Rolling hills, which do not require much effort to walk. Only one valley (about halfway to the lighthouse) has steep bits, but again nothing untoward.
As for the path, extremely wide for the most part it is set back from the cliff edge. Contrast this with some paths we've been on which are no more than 15" wide, have a 200' sheer drop on one side, and a very steep slope on the other. One slip, and you're fish bait.
Naturally, there were loads of gull type things flying along the cliff. I think they are Herring gulls for the most part, but that's all I'm going to attempt seeing as my gull recognition skills are worse than my warbler and Linnet recognition skills.
I've been particularly evil with y'all as I've started off with the 'boring' gull photos. 'What!' says a gull lover, 'gulls aren't boring.'
There were a lot of birds around. Some (mostly the small brown variety) frustratingly far away, even for my long lens. Others were more obliging, like this nesting gull suffering in full sun. It wasn't particularly hot (16 C) but the sun was relentless.
It was disappointingly misty. Ilse of Man could not be see. And other distant landmarks were greyed out. Still, lots to see around coastal path.
You don't get to see the 'interesting' birds until quite a ways from St Bees. The reason is simply that the cliffs they nest on are near St Bees head lighthouse. You can, if you are lazy, park in the car park near the lighthouse, and walk some 800m or so to the viewing point on the cliff's edge. We preferred the walk.
In terms of photographing gulls against the sky, I found the best strategy was to have AI tracking on, Whole area AF and to half depress the shutter button whilst lining up the camera on the bird before aiming i.e. I use the hot shoe and front of lens cover to aim camera at bird, before switching to view finder to get bird in frame. This gives time for the camera's auto focus to get itself sorted out to focus on something in the sky.
The walk proceeded at a gentle pace, with me stopping often to photograph something. I think we covered between 5 to 6 miles, there and back; with welcome use of toilets after!
Now to the mysterious discovery of Gandalf's staff. I quickly discovered that it was best to leave my very robust monopod extended to its normal shooting height. This meant that I didn't have to waste time extending it when I needed it. I simply popped camera on to it.
But best of all, I discovered it makes an excellent walking stick/staff, particularly when coming down a steep, rocky slope. I could slide my hand up and down the monopod to adjust to whatever terrain I was walking up or down. This was especially true of down, where the monopod gave me a huge reach not available with a normal walking stick. The weight of the monopod carried in my left hand neatly counter balanced the weight of camera/lens cradled in the crook of my right arm.
More interesting wildlife in future installments.
90% luck, 5% field craft, 5% camera skills.