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.
Thanks, Scozmos.
I almost had to call on your bird identification skills.
Once again: interesting bird call, this time above my head. Spotted the creature, some 50-60 feet vertically above me, with lots of intervening twigs, branches and trees between me and the bird. Said bird was back lit, with the only salvation being a low morning sun casting an interesting orange hue.
I clicked away like mad, swore like crazy as small twigs caused my R7 to hunt, danced up and down a muddy footpath (hoping I didn't step into dog poop) trying to get a decent view, with the bird (rather unhelpfully, I thought) moving around into even more inaccessible positions.
These were the best of the bunch; actually the only ones worth saving. Yep, a Nuthatch
Only two out of about 20 photos. I have quite a few of its backside or hidden behind a twig or nicely posed but with rubbish lighting i.e. silhouetted. Heavily cropped. Thank goodness for the large megapixels of the R7.
It's that low light time of year, very dank and dreich up here today AND, where our Nuthatches hang out is under trees too! So nice shots
I managed to lift the camera just in time it didn’t hang around for long
Great photo Kevin
Thank you. Very lucky
Nice to catch it on a perch Kevin.
Excellent Kevin. A crackin' pose and great detail ... . We all need a bit of luck in our photography - right place right time and all that. It makes up for all the, 'You should have come 10 minutes ago, or yesterday' ...
Yes, lucky, it’s never happened before and definitely not this close
Thank you and yes, we all have too many of the ‘just missed something special moments’. this was a ‘phew, just lifted my camera in time’ almost miser it, too