I'll come to the missed shot in a minute, but for now it's a cormorant perched on the local 'No Fishing ' sign. he was one of five cormorants spotted at the pond this morning, so spare a thought for the fish!
And if five cormorants isn't bad enough, there's always a heron to pick off what they might have missed.
Those were taken in the morning. At lunchtime I switched to the short lens and took some views of the pond and church. That proved to be a poor decision, though the pond and church are extremely picturesque.
While I was scouting around the churchyard for interesting angles, I noticed a sparrowhawk overhead. I had the short lens on the camera and started to switch lenses (assuming that the sp'rawk would continue to circle overhead). Hmmm… it didn't. It dropped down from the sky and rested on a gravestone about 15 feet away from me. And I had no lens on the camera. Aaargh! :insane:
It was gone before I could attach the zoom, but a beautiful moment anyway. And to make up for it, I did manage a shot of a sparrow in a tree. Not quite the same thing, but it's a pretty little bird and no doubt pleased to have escaped the attentions of the raptor.
Camera note: all bird shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. Pond and church taken with the EF17-40mm f/4L USM lens.
chthoniid
11 Dec 2012Looks like you're still being lucky with the weather 🙂
Words
11 Dec 2012Chthoniid, yes things have improved a lot as the temperature has dropped. It's a great time of year even if the days are vanishingly short.
derWandersmann
11 Dec 2012Well, the shots you got are quite good enough to make up for the loss of the sparrowhawk, Words.
And, as they say a few miles north of you (QUITE a few miles!): "Ay, well … these things happen."
gdare
11 Dec 2012Blue skies, a phenomenon I haven't seen for a while in Vancouver :ko:
Nice little sparrow. I like them a lot, they are official birds of Belgrade and will always remind me on my childhood :happy:
SittingFox
11 Dec 2012Clearly, the sparrowhawk used its exceptional eyesight to note that you didn't have the right lens :whistle:
I like the lighting in the first heron shot :up:
Words
13 Dec 2012Adele, you are probably right about the sp'rawk. That's not the first time one's teased me like that. Several years ago I had an even closer encounter in the garden, but it was gone before I could even move the camera. A decent perched shot is high on my list of 'still to get' images.
Words
13 Dec 2012dW, missing shots is all part of it, but without the camera I doubt I'd even have been there to see it. Those moments are like private photos. I still have the image, but for once it's not for sharing.
Words
13 Dec 2012Darko, we've done well with the sky lately (making up for summer). London was full of sparrows when I was growing up. Now you rarely see them there, and even in the countryside they are much less common than they were.