Psilos
Bird Journal |
Wednesday February
6th 2008 |
||
"Chasing
gold " |
||
A bright cloudless morning
and I am out early after flight shots. My destination is Marshside where
hopefully I will find plenty of waders and wildfowl to photograph up
in the air. Pulling up in the carpark I am thrilled to see thousands
of birds are up in a panic. Wigeon, pintail, Godwits and Golden plover
are putting on a show and the race is on to get to them before they
settle back down. |
||
 |
||
Sadly I am too slow and before
my eyes the scene dies down and I miss my chance. Still the day is young
and I am not to be outdone. There are two hides at Marshside but at
each the light is face on and unsuitable. I need to get the sun behind
me so I take to the road and walk until I reach the back of the reserve
and I am in a position to see birds coming from all directions.
Here I feel the full force of the wind. With no shelter it is
very cold. All I can do is stand and wait..... |
||
 |
||
Close by the road
there are thousands of wigeon, Shoveler and Pintail on the water. Many
times over the first hour did small numbers of wigeon fly up and around
but getting the light on their faces was proving very difficult. This
time I wanted birds up close and it seems I wasnt going to be successful
at that either. Birds were just too far away to ger the shots that I
really wanted. |
||
 |
||
Then I was alerted
to the presence of waders. Small flocks of Golden plover were flying
very low across the fields and raising up to cross over the road to
the lake on the other side. Boy can these birds shift and in the cold
keeping up with them proved very difficult. Had my chances with three
small flocks only as they flew across the skyline in front of me. |
||
|
||
 |
||
Large flocks of Greylag geese
were also flying around. They were very unsettled and constantly circled
and landed. |
||
 |
||
Several Little Egrets were
also around but rarely do they come close. My efforts at photographing
these birds are never very successful. This bird at least flew close
enough for a fair attempt. |
||
 |
||
Sadly I was never to witness
the spectacular flocks of birds again that were in the air when I arrived.
After an hour all went quiet with very few birds flying around. So frozen
to the bone I went down to the beach to see if the high tide had brought
anything interesting to see. |
||
 |
||
Quite a few Shelduck were out on the marsh and thousands of Knot were feeding on the shoreline. Suddenly all the Knot were up in the air. Twisting and turning, grey and then white against the sky. Twirling and making patterns in the sky. Fascinated by bird formations as I am I clicked away. The birds move too fast to see anything with the naked eye but when on my computer this rather life like whale appeared before me! So there I was standing in the middle of the marsh, getting very wet feet when this curious Kestrel zipped on by at close range. He went by so fast I almost missed him. Another nice flight shot in the bag! Next stop Martinmere for another couple of hours.... |
||
 |
||
BACK
TO JOURNAL INDEX OR NEXT PAGE |
||
