Kingfisher

Here are some more Kingfisher pictures, from the time when it still was snow, the snow disappeared for 1.5 weeks ago and after that it has been spring-time temperatures.
But instead it is very windy, and we also had thunderstorms two times, which feels a little bit strange  in late January :))
For some images I have used 2.0 teleconverter and 200-400mm lens, and that's because i wanted to get closer to the bird.
But it has the disadvantage that its aperture is f8 instead of f4 which means it needs lot more light or raise the Iso on the camera, which does not feel good because the quality of the image gets even worse.
The sharpness of the images also becomes worse and to get the best out of the combo, you should increase the aperture to 11 or more, but then it becomes even more difficult with the light.
Well enough about that, every time  I've been to the kingfisher I've tried to get the pictures of it when it's flying or splashing in to the water images, but it's so incredibly difficult.
The little bird is so fast, so the moment when it dives from the branch into the water is lightning fast and  to see where it lands and then try to point the camera there seems hopelessly impossible.
But today I'm going down again, I hope it is still there otherwise I will enjoy the the storm winds.

Pintail, Goosander and other birds

Today I was down to Hillsborough Park, for there is a small pond.
And in the winter there is usually Goosander and other lake / sea birds that I otherwise  dont  see very often. I was down there yesterday and looked for birds, but did not have my camera with me and then I saw a bird I had never seen before. It was really nice with long feathers and colors.
The bird is called Pintail and it was that bird I was after today, so I took the bus there in the morning and hoped that it would be there, and lucky me, it was there. I spent a few hours there to shoot it and other birds, there were also some weird hybrid ducks that looked pretty nice too.
By the way, the lens that I dropped in the snow in the last blog post is okej luckily. :))

Camera equipment: D90 and the nikon 200-400 f4 lens.

Pintail/stjärtand in winter plumage

Hybrid mallard/gräsand

Goosander/Storskrake males

Coot/Sothöna

And a crazy canada goose :))

Winter in the Peak District NP

Yesterday I was out to Peak District NP. There is a lot of snow here now (for being England), so I wanted to take the opportunity before it disappears in a few days.
The day did not start well at all, I dropped my most expensive lens in the snow and because I had removed the cap it was full of it and not the easiest to get it off.
Luckily there where no major damage that I know of yet.
I wandered off to the place where the mountain hare is and it was not the most fun to plod (is this the correct english word for it??.. )in the snow, it sucked the life out me. Finally 3 hours later I came to where I wanted. Initially, I saw no hares, but soon saw some tracks that I followed. First I saw one and then suddenly a bunch of them. It was still hard to get close, and when looking at the pictures in the camera afterwards it looked as I chought them in the fog, but I realized it was water or condensation in the lens (from when I dropped it in the snow). It was impossible remove it so I have now permanent fog effect ;))

The landscape was nice as the wind had glued the snow on poles, stones, twigs and etc. 

After walking around and photographing a couple of hours it was time to go back down to the pub to take a well deserved cold beer :))

Camera eguipment: Nikon D90, nikon 200-400mm f4 and nikon 10-24mm f3,5

Kingfisher in snow.

Have not blogged for a few days, and I blame the weather. Actually I have been out shooting dipper, but accidently deleted all images :(
Winter arrived a week ago and we do not see the end of it yet. Last night we got around 10-15cm of snow, which means that it is chaos on the roads. 
Back to the photos :))
The kingfisher has been out a lot lately, so I was down to Endcliff Park earlier today in hope of shooting it in a bit more snowy environment.
The kingfisher has been very active and it's probably because of the cold, not that it is extremly cold but it probably needs to eat more than usual. A lot of small fish in the pond, so it does not go hungry.
This also means that I got quite a lot of opportunities to try to catch it flying and fishing.
Tried today to get pictures of it diving in the water and taking off, but it's damn hard. Might be the camera, used D90, which isnt the best action camera. I ended up with blurry pictures unfortunately. But practice makes perfect and tomorrow I will try again, this time with the D3S and hope for the dream picture finally to be taken.

Birmingham

Last weekend Me, my wife and two friends went to birmingham for a little bit sightseeing, the day was chilly and overcast so you had to go inside and warm up a bit now and then.
We first went into the tourist information center to pick up some maps, and after receiving advice on routes,  we started to walk the long tourist round which would take about 3 hours.
The round would show us the most worth seeing buildings and other things around town, but I have to say that Birmingham was the most boring town I've been to so far. Sure, there are nice places too such as the canals with its houseboats and restaurants.
The canals in Birmingham are even several miles longer than Venice and they form the heart of the British canal system.
Birmingham is also England's second largest city with just over one million inhabitants. (2008)
We also went to see an Indian temple,  Shri Venkateswara (Balaji) which is located just outside the town.
It was a nice place and experience.

Landscape in the mist

A few days ago, I was off to Stanage Edge, in hope of fog in the valley. During some previous hikes the scenery has been amazingly wonderful.
I got there a little later in the day because I wanted to try and shoot the sunset, otherwise if I get there in the morning I know I can't be bothered to remain there until sunset.
The fog then, it was in place and was as a lid over the valley. I had the zoom on, with which I can both take compact landscape pics but also later on take out the detailes. I really like these pics, especially the feeling that the landscape is close by even if in the real life you see for miles and miles (swedish mile ;)) )
The expectation that at the sunset the sun would light up the fog with its warm beams did not fulfill, but you can not have everything :))

Camera equipment used: D90 with nikon 200-400 f4 lens and the 10-24mm f3,5

Grey Wagtail

Today I took a walk down to the Rivelin Valley in the stunning fine weather with sunshine and clear blue skies.
The goal was  to find the dipper, but unfortunately, it was not there when I was there.
So I went around and looked for kingfisher instead, managed to find it in a swamp area but it did not want to be photographed today. But instead, I saw a gray wagtail which was a bit surprising, because I thought they disappeared to warmer countries in the autumn.
But good for me because then I got something to shoot today, I was able to get it as close as 3-4m which rarely happens during the summer months if you do not have camouflage.
Maybe it was  too busy to eat rather than looking for me, because it ran back and forth all the time. It certainly was not still for a single second, which made it rather difficult to photograph especially with my D90 which has not really so fast autofocus.

Mountain hare and Red grouse

Yesterday we went out on a 14 km hike, one of our well known routes. This one is quite nice as it's a rather easy walk but has great views over the Ladybower area.
This particular morning was really warm with +10C. So far the new year has been so warm :)
The sun showed itself now and then, but up on the tops it a bit windy as usual and then of course it felt little colder.
What makes it more fun to hike around here is that there are a lot of Red grouse and it's a challenge to try to approach them for some pictures. As they at the moment forming pair the males are getting a but tougher and easier to approach. Maybe they thought I was a threat and wanted to show off. I got as only few meters from them!
I came really close to another animal too, a mountain hare. They are pretty with their white fur.
And despite their white fur it's not easy to see them, even if there is no snow right now, sometimes only a head held down in the heather is visible.
I managed to sneak up 3m to one hare through wet heather and bog. It is amazingly exciting to be able to get close to wild animals like this.

Tyresta National Park. Stockholm, Sweden

New year and new opportunities, Christmas and New Year's Eve was spent in Stockholm.
Arrived to a fantastic fine winter landscape in Stockholm on Dec. 21 with a lot of snow on the branches and trees and it made ​​it even nicer. I had one goal that week and that was to go to Tyresta NP and shoot winter landscape.
It's incredibly nice there when there is lots of snow everywhere, but because it was overcast for a whole week before the sun appeared. And it was unfortunately many days with temperatures above freezing which made the nice winter landscape started to disappear.
But luckily it was still pretty nice when I then arrived to Tyresta the only sunny day.

Facts about Tyresta National Park: Tyresta NP and Nature Reserve is one of the largest unspoilt woodland in Sweden outside the mountains. The area has one of the finest primeval forests south of the mountain region and in 1993 established Tyresta as nr: 23 NP in Sweden.
The National Park covers 1970 hectares, for the vast majority consisting of forest in an alternating rift with pine as the dominant tree species on top of the rocky areas and tree in the fertile valleys.
Around the park are Tyresta nature reserve as a protective horseshoe in the south, east and north. The reserve covers 2700 hectares and the total is the protected area of nearly 5000 hectares.

The reserve is also dominant coniferous forest but there are also rich deciduous forest areas, valuable old farmland and a piece of the inner archipelago.

Click on a picture to enlarge them!