Kicking off this year's odds and sods with Starlings in a rainbow on that extreme rarity: sunshine.
It was early morning, with the sun barely cresting the tree line. We were able to get out for our morning walk as it wasn't raining. This photo is my trusty Canon 80D and Sigma 18-300mm lens zoomed in at 300mm.
Pulling back a bit.
And finally all the way back.
Oh, 2024 got off to a good start with this.
So far my cat, perhaps two neighbouring cats visiting our garden, a local fox and Tawny owl, and this trap have accounted for at least five of the beasties. Sightings of rats in our garden are getting rarer, so I think I'm winning. Two rather timid and wary rats, that I know of, are proving more elusive to catch. I've resorted to buying a lethal trap. The trap was triggered, yesterday, but no rat, sadly. Though a mouse might have triggered it, and was small enough to be within the kill bar.
90% luck, 5% field craft, 5% camera skills.
Never see Chaffies where I am. Nice birds.
A few from the last few days.
Haven't seen a Treecreeper for a bit ...
Some lovely Starlinng murmurations on here ...
www.bbc.co.uk/.../uk-england-northamptonshire-68284841
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
I agree with you Angus, I still can't get the hang of the new interface. I am not sure that the sizes in the boxes do anything. I normally resize my photos in Photoshop to about 3 - 4 MB, then when I upload I insert 700 in the first box, I used to inset 500, I don't know why I changed, it didn't alter anything. Then on the next page I drag the corner handles to make a reasonable size before posting. I then find that if a viewer wants to the enlarge or zoom in box or whatever it's called to fill the screen. Just my way ... .
I like the Chaffy, unfortunately I do't get any in my garden. I mainly get Sparrows, Dunnocks, Blue Tits, Robbins and a few Great Tits.
Thanks for the comments. I realise, after reading them, that we must be really lucky having Chaffinches in our garden. Even if for a brief period every spring. All the more remarkable, I feel, as we live in the middle of a large, modern housing estate, a mile and a bit south of Wokingham. Granted, we do have the odd field and small farm, nearby, which helps with bird variety and numbers.
Anyway, I've been trying to photograph a couple of male Chaffinches that have been buzzing around of late. Typical, when I spot them and manage to get camera on them, it is cloudy. On the other hand, when it is sunny, I don't get camera on them in time. Got this one in oak tree at bottom of garden about two hours ago.
Entitled: Yeah! What of it?
Modus operandi. Spot Chaffinch. Rush into living room to grab R7, rush to back window, train lens on Chaffinch; blighter flies off before I can press shutter release. (Have you noticed that wildlife seem to sense when you have got a camera on them and are about to press shutter release, whereupon they fly or run off? It's uncanny the number of times it happens.)
While waiting for Chaffinches to return (bit of field craft here!!!) I get some practice in by pointing my camera at various birds who happen to be in range. Thus, I got a Blue tit in my sights, pressed shutter release, then pressed it again; by which time the bird had taken off. Familiar story: one shot with bird, one without?
Hah! Not this time. Lady luck, if not the sun god, was shining on me. Whatever my lens was focused on (because it sure wasn't the Blue tit when it was stationary in our Rose bush, that photo was out of focus) resulted in this rather marvelous shot.
Like it Angus! Well captured ...
Well done Angus, persistence pays off
Lovely colours on the chaffi.
takes a while to get to the end of this thread but got there in the end.