This Weeks Roundup
Despite doing a number of long (by my current standards) walks this week, most of them weren't photographically very productive. A trip to Birkacre did provide a good variety of bird shots and I also had a lengthy encounter with the Buzzards by the canal that, as always, has me yearning for a longer lens and probably someone to carry it for me too.
All bird pictures taken with Nikon Z8 and Nikkor 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 except where noted otherwise.
T'Moors
Noon Hill
A massive improvement in the weather on Tuesday inspired me to take a wander on the moors and for some reason I decided to hike up to Noon Hill. This is a grassy offshoot from the main mass of Winter Hill about 200ft below the main summit and bloomin' hard work as it's pretty steep. A headless horseman is said to roam this area (I don't know why, the local myths seem a bit lacking in detail on that front), but he must take Tuesdays off as I seemed to be the only restless spirit on the hill that particular afternoon. Instead I had the summit to myself, enjoying a splendid view looking West across Lancashire to the coast while eating my lunch. This is the view from the summit (Z8+24-70 f/2.8S)...
Birkacre
Black Headed Gull
I saw this character stood in the shallows at the edge of the lodge, it seemed to be very interested in a nesting Coot, as it warily pottered around the nest, although never actually getting too close.
Coal Tit
I usually miss these characters as they never seem to remain in place long enough to fire off a shot before flitting off somewhere else, however on this occasion there were so many of them around that even I managed a couple of nice shots.
Mandarin Duck
Yes, I've finally sunk to the level of taking duck pictures, but it's a special one. I hadn't seem one of these before, it's kind of the Liberace of the duck world I guess and spent most of the time I watched it preening itself while its less flashy partner looked on.
Grey Heron
The Heron seems to be a regular visitor to Birkacre. I got what would have been a really nice shot of it landing here with its wings outstretched, however a tiny twig on a tree close to the camera managed to completely obscure its head, so instead we have this shot once I'd moved and it had settled into the tree.
Dunnock
This little Dunnock was merrily helping itself to seed from one of the feeders that line the paths around this location.
T'Canal
An Uneasy Truce
This one surprised me. Taken earlier in the week when I was out walking the canal with the OM1, I'd spotted the injured Buzzard flying around and eventually alighting in a tree. Shortly afterwards, a Magpie flew up and landed in the same tree a couple of branches away. The Buzzard didn't seem to take much interest in it, so the Magpie gradually edged closer until it was perched right next to it. They both sat there next to each other for a good five minutes before the Buzzard eventually flew off. I would have thought this would be a bit of a risky move for a lone Magpie, but the Buzzard really didn't seem to mind it being there at all, making me wonder if they've been on some big Disney style adventure together at some point in the past and now just hang out occasionally reminiscing about old times ("I remember when all this was fields..." kind of thing).
More Buzzards
I normally just take the OM1 on canal walks, but on Friday I decided to suffer the hardship of carrying the Z8+100-400 for a change and I'm glad I did as the two Buzzards nesting there put on quite a show for me and, even if its hit rate is frustratingly a bit all over the place, when it actually does acquire focus, this lens is dramatically sharper than the 100-400 I have on the OM.
I first spotted what I think is the female of the pair. It launched itself from the woods on the far bank and began circling while gradually climbing to dizzying heights, eventually reaching a point where I could barely see it.
After a while I spotted a second dot circling high in the sky nearby and the challenge turned to attempting to photograph the pair of them in the same frame as they occasionally crossed paths. By complete luck I also managed to catch a passing jet which I didn't even notice at the time when I took this.
After circling high above me for what seemed like an eternity to my neck (probably about 10 minutes), the birds began to lose altitude. They didn't do this gradually though. The technique seemed to be to briefly tuck their wings in and dive at breakneck speed before stretching them out again and circling for a bit before taking another dive. Fast, but nowhere near as fast as Kestrels can manage, those things practically teleport from one location to another when they do this sort of thing (at least from the perspective of your humble photographer wondering why it's just seemingly vanished).
Eventually, they dropped to a low level and, one by one disappeared into the trees. The actual landing in the trees looked really ungainly, a bit of a compromise between gliding in as gently as possible while tucking wings out of the way to not clip the trees during the process and unfortunately the full sequence was marred by many out of focus shots, but at least a couple were acceptable.
One final shot of the second Buzzard after it landed in the tree relatively close to me. This is the one with a big hole in its left wing.
