Nesting Herring Gull, a Duck, and some fox cubs

The local herring gulls are all busy setting up nesting points on the rooftops at work. My building has a series of green roofs, and one gull has elected to make her nest right up against the window of a colleague's office… which is fine (I wish it were my office), apart from her screeches if anyone approaches too close (despite the thick glass). We'll make allowances and let her have her space.

This shot is of another gull, in her annual nest where she is less likely to be disturbed.

I'll no doubt be getting pictures of the chicks in a few weeks, but the second photo today is just a pretty picture of a male mallard taking a break from the hubbub of the pond.

The fox cubs are still lively, and I got some excellent trail cam footage overnight but haven't yet had time to edit it. That's mainly because I'm still learning how best to get colour footage at night. This is the latest attempt and a slight improvement on yesterday's. Tighter editing and better focus control would help, so very much a work in progress. DSLRs are great for video, but generally lack the focus tracking of camcorders so everything is set to manual and my response time is definitely not what it should be. I'm shooting at 1/50s shutter, 25fps, ISO 1000-1600, and the aperture was set to f/2.8.

And a photo to close….

Camera note: birds taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. Video and photos of the foxes were taken with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens.