Author Archives: Words

Cormorant and other fine birds at Falmer

November 11, 2014 by Words | 4 Comments

A major thunderstorm passed across the South of England last night. Whether it’s coincidence or not, I don’t know; but a cormorant turned up at Falmer Pond this morning, and stayed for the day. It’s been a long time since one has pitched up at the pond, but it seemed set for the duration and was happily swimming up and down searching for fish.

Cormorant

Cormorant

Cormorant

Cormorant

It was nice to have one of the more interesting species back at the pond, but the gulls were also putting on a good display. This is a juvenile herring gull taking off from the water. Tracking this kind of movement has become a whole lot easier with the 7D Mark II. It really is incredibly responsive.

Herring gull

Herring gull

I’m really happy with the 7D Mark II, and am getting used to the multiple ways of setting up the autofocus. I sincerely doubt I’d have caught this final shot of a black-headed gull staring down the camera with the previous version.

Black-headed gull

The one irritation at the moment is that Lightroom won’t process the Raw files from the Mark II. No doubt an update will appear, but for the moment my work-flow has become: upload and sort in Digital Photo Pro v4.0; convert to TIF and download; upload TIFs to Lightroom; edit; download TIFs; upload TIFs to Photoshop; edit and convert to sRGB; download as JPG file. It’s slow, but it works!

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

Posted in water birds Tagged , , |

Cat and Blackbird in the Garden, Peregrine on the Cliffs

November 10, 2014 by Words | 2 Comments

A long descriptive title, but there’s little in the way of a theme to today’s post. Just a collection of photos, starting with a blackbird in the garden.

Female blackbird

Female blackbird

Female blackbird

Female blackbird

Overhead, a buzzard put in an appearance, to the annoyance of the local gulls.

Buzzard

This is a neighbour’s cat (which uses our garden a lot), jumping up on the fringe of the pond. For some reason it likes that spot 😉 The first three are consecutive frames, which are a nice demonstration of the benefits of the 10fps capability of the 7D Mark II.

Cat jumping up on to wall

Cat jumping up on to wall

Cat jumping up on to wall

Cat (close-up)

Cat stepping over pond

Later in the day we headed down to Rottingdean, taking advantage of a mild and sunny afternoon.

Rottingdean Undercliff walk

The Undercliff Walk at Rottingdean

The first rise of cliffs in the distance is Saltdean, and beyond that are Telscombe Cliffs. We didn’t go as far as Telscombe, but I did take a couple of long range shots of one of its residents. This is uncropped, taken at 400mm.

Peregrine falcon

Peregrine falcon perched high on Telscombe Cliffs

And now a couple of crops (with the 1.4 extender added). It’s still a very long way off.

Peregrine falcon

Peregrine falcon

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. The final two shots had the Canon EF 1.4xIII extender added.

Posted in Bird of Prey, Birds, cat, coastal, Landscape, Seaside Views, Wildlife Tagged , , , , |

Oystercatchers and other birds

November 7, 2014 by Words | 2 Comments

The oystercatchers are the pick of today’s birds, but I’ll get to them in a moment. I’ll start with some early morning photos of the local heron, something of a fixture at Falmer Pond.

Once again we had sunshine in the morning.

Heron

Heron posing in the sunshine

Heron flying low over Falmer Pond

Heron flying low over Falmer Pond

Heron flying low over Falmer Pond

At this time of day, getting the best of the light depends greatly on where the subject is on the pond. The heron flew into shade, but at the far end the ducks were resplendent.

Female Mallard

Female Mallard

Male Mallard

Male Mallard

The best of the light had gone by lunchtime, but I had a few minutes to spare down at Rottingdean. I headed for the beach, where a smal lgroup of oystercatchers were gathered.

Oystercatchers

Oystercatchers on the beach at Rottingdean

Oystercatcher

Some were feeding…

Oystercatcher

Some were dozing…

Oystercatcher

This pair of oystercatchers were going for a stroll…

Oystercatcher

Oystercatcher on the Wing

One final treat, a passing cormorant.

Cormorant in flight

Cormorant in flight

All the shots today were taken with the 100-400 lens with a 1.4 extender attached. It’s a nice combination and performs well, though you are restricted to the centre focusing point with this combination. It does however turn the lens into a 560mm monster, which once you take into account the 1.6 crop factor on the 7D Mark II’s sensor equates to a more than respectable 896mm. You really can get in pretty close with that.

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens + Canon EF 1.4xIII extender.

Posted in water birds, Wildlife Tagged , , , , |