seagull_special
Well-known member
One of my ambitions to shoot a kingfisher, great effort!
One of my ambitions to shoot a kingfisher, great effort!
One of my ambitions to shoot a kingfisher......
Went on a Kingfisher photography day in Somerset.
http://www.charliebishop.com/kingfisher-courses
What a great day. If you've got a lot of patience, I can highly recommend this.
Charlie's great. Incredibly knowledgeable and good fun.
Here's my best effort.
I had to be at Charlie's house just up the A37 from Yeovil at 7.30 am, where he goes over the camera settings and checks your ability so he knows how much help you need. We then jumped in his car and we drove for about 20 minutes to Somerton where the river Carey runs through. After a short walk through a wood, we were in the hides from 8.30am to 2.30pm and the Kingfisher made 4 visits. Charlie has put a small plastic tank in the river just in front of the hides, which he fills with Minnows. The Kingfisher lands on one of the branches he has cable-tied to a Willow on the river bank about 3 metres from the hides, he puffs up his chest, then dives in to the Minnows and within a milli-second is back on the branch with one in his mouth. He then stuns it by banging it around and then proceeds to swallow it. He then seems to let it digest for a minute, then flies off. Average of 1.5 hours wait between visits, but there's something nice about being in a hide in the middle of nowhere with just birds, butterflies and insects (and Charlie) for company.Thanks for the link. May well do this
How many sightings did you get in the time you were there?
Frustratingly the other day I had a barn owl hunting in broad daylight just a few metres from me but I only had a short lens with me. Had I had my usual 400mm lens I could have got cracking shots!
I had to be at Charlie's house just up the A37 from Yeovil at 7.30 am, where he goes over the camera settings and checks your ability so he knows how much help you need. We then jumped in his car and we drove for about 20 minutes to Somerton where the river Carey runs through. After a short walk through a wood, we were in the hides from 8.30am to 2.30pm and the Kingfisher made 4 visits. Charlie has put a small plastic tank in the river just in front of the hides, which he fills with Minnows. The Kingfisher lands on one of the branches he has cable-tied to a Willow on the river bank about 3 metres from the hides, he puffs up his chest, then dives in to the Minnows and within a milli-second is back on the branch with one in his mouth. He then stuns it by banging it around and then proceeds to swallow it. He then seems to let it digest for a minute, then flies off. Average of 1.5 hours wait between visits, but there's something nice about being in a hide in the middle of nowhere with just birds, butterflies and insects (and Charlie) for company.
If the Kingfisher doesn't turn up, you only pay £ 45. This has only happened once in the last two years.
A couple from Vancouver last week
A humpback whale about to dive
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And some Orca's we were really lucky to see, there were about 20 of them altogether
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Forgive me if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, but most flowers, particularly light coloured ones benefit from being photographed out of full sunshine. The sun tends to over blow the colour and bleach out the detail. Here's a picture of a similar white flower taken on a dull wet day.
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That is a beauty.A humpback whale about to dive
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Do you prefer it with just one eye? Only my personal taste, but I'd like to see both.A neighbour's cat. One of the few animal shots to get with minimum hardship!