Arrived early to early really as no sunlight gets onto the Kingfisher perch in front of the hide until about 10am this time of year as the perch is shaded by the trees and bushes on the south side of the hide.
But its always nice to sit quietly and sup on a nice hot cup of coffee whilst waiting for things to happen.
Which in due course it did this female Kingfisher came along sat on the perch dived and popped back up onto the perch with her catch, a nice juicy bug.
Canon 5DSR 1/100 F5.6 iso 1600 @ 500mm f4 mk2 + 1.4x mk3
A Little Grebe was also feeding in front of the hide
Canon 5DSR 1/800 F5.6 iso 1600 @ 500mm f4 mk2 + 1.4x mk3
The Kingfisher came and went I caught her looking at the hide for this second shot I was able to increase my aperture to f11 to improve the Depth Of Field over the previous shot
Canon 5DSR 1/80 F11 iso 1600 @ 500mm f4 mk2 + 1.4x mk3
Then the highlight of the day for me came as I was walking back to the car from the hide I had heard some bearded Tits pinging when I was in the hide but they were too distant as I walked up the track I could hear pinging but it was a lot closer, so I slowed my pace and tried to locate exactly where they were.
They were off to my left which meant that the light would be behind me, spot on there was not much wind either another plus, then I saw movement in the reeds up ahead, I slowed even more making as little movement as possible, this is what I managed to capture there was a small flock maybe 10-15 birds.
Canon 5DSR 1/800 F5.6 iso 400 @ 500mm f4 mk2 + 1.4x mk3
Canon 5DSR 1/640 F5.6 iso 1600 @ 500mm f4 mk2 + 1.4x mk3
Canon 5DSR 1/100 F5.6 iso 1600 @ 500mm f4 mk2 + 1.4x mk3
Cracking little birds beautiful colours a great end to the mornings trip.
All the above shots can be seen in greater detail on my flikr feed here:
