Kingfisher

At last, the storms and rainfall seems to have died out, and I have ventured out on photo adventure again :)
As you probably have seen on the news, it has been Very windy and rainy here for the past few months. To be honest, some of the days it has been ok weather for few hours, but I have since not had the energy and inspiration to take photographs.
So yesterday and today I have been down to a valley where I 've seen the kingfisher the whole winter and it was still there. Yesterday I didn't manage to get any good pictures of it at all, so I tried again this morning and it went much better. I positioned myself so that I could photograph it while it was sitting on one of his favorite branches that are quite high up above the water. You can clearly see that it is one of its favourites because of all the marks from its claws. Obviously I had the camouflage on otherwise it's impossible to get closer than 5 - 6m.
During the three hours I was there, it only sat on the branch 3 times! I would have liked to be there longer, but my back was beginning to hurt as I was standing the whole time. The camera was on the tripod rather high up so I could get on the same level as the kingfisher.
I will try next time, perhaps already tomorrow but it depends on the weather, to try and get some pictures while it is hunting and diving into the water.
                                                                         

The Kingfisher sitting on one of its favorite branches



The colorful Kingfisher

As mentioned in the previous post, I have been trying to get a good close-up of a kingfisher down in the Rivelin Valley. They are a bit easier to see during the winter months, not sure why, so I have for the past few years focused on them during this period of year. Like this time, I have stalked that poor bird to take a photo for the past two weeks but it didn't really want to land close to me. Its only 15cm, so you need it close, even when I use the 550mm! 
So couple of days ago I went down to the valley rather early one morning and was hiding in front of one of its favourite landing twigs just 5m away which should make it more that just a dot on a pic. The tripod was up, as the camouflage and the wait began.
After an hour my feet and butt got numb, even though I was sitting on a rather comfortable pad. After another half an hours the kingfisher chose to show itself, but only by fishing on the completely opposite side to where I was.
Just for a moment it landed on a twig close to me, of course on one which I didn't have the focus on, and I thought that was the chance I had that day. It got scared off by me moving around underneath the camouflage.
As any dedicated (read insane) photographer I waited for another four hours while loosing all the feeling in my legs, and then It was suddenly back and sat on the perfect spot that I had focus on!
Yes it takes a lot of patience to take good pictures of wildlife, and I'm not sure everybody is actually aware of that, but it is definitely worth it.

I was out today to the same place, wanting to take a picture of it fishing. Unfortunately it came by the pond only to show itself, stayed for around a minute before leaving to never came back.
No, I didn't stay and wait for it for four hours :))

Until next time, have a great week!
                                                                  

 

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.

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.

Kingfisher and Heron

Almost every day for a week, I have been down to Endcliff Park where the beautiful little kingfisher is located. I've tried to get my dream picture off it, which is when it splashed down into the water.
But unfortunately the sun does not reach down to the water yet because it is in a valley and the winter sun is not really bothered to get up as high.
I think that maybe in February the sun is reaching down there, then i will try again or i will try every time i get the opportunity but it will not be easy.
So why is the sun so important then, because the shutter speed is far too low now and I do not want to raise ISO sensitivity that will increase noise to the photo.
And that the sun can give fine effects of splashing water after the bird.
As it is now, so the shutter speed is 1/60 at noon with iso 200 and to get to the picture that I'm talking about, I must have a shutter speed of at least 1/500s or more.
But I can not complain when I have the opportunity to photograph the beautiful kingfisher :))

Camera equipment: Nikon D90 and Nikon 200-400mm F4 lens thar combo gives 300-600mm F4 with D90 (1,5) crop sensor and a tripod.

Kingfisher, robin and more

I was again at my bird feeding place, but without jay pictured. They were in place but no one wanted to sit on the perch that I have put out. : ((
But a magpie was caught on picture very early in the morning, it was still pretty dark outside and the camera was set to manuell mode shutter 1/200s ISO 1600 so picture was a little bit dark :) A so-called low key image where most of it is black, might be fine with those photos, too. Unfortunately, little cut off tail feather.
But today I was down to Endcliff  Park because I had read on the Sheffield bird study group that two kingfishers had been there yesterday, so I went down today to check if they were there and they was there. So I tried to photograph them for a few hours i got some pics of them, but it's hard to get really close to them because they are in the middle of a pond. So the closest you can get them is about 6m it is fun to be able to get so close, but it would be much better if I get closer because that will blur the background on the image even more.
But in this pond I have the chance to take my dream picture of the kingfisher, which is when it dives into the water and the water splashes and it has fish in its beak that is the image I will hunt all winter hope I succeed :))

 

Camera i used: Nikon D90, D3s and nikon 200-400 f4 lens

 

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Kingfisher

Today I had luck on my side because I found the kingfisher down in the Rivelin Valley.
I've only seen it a couple times down there, and yet I go there several times a week so they do not seem to be so common there.
But today I found one at a small swamp area, and it was not easy to shoot it because of all the branches and trees above the swamp. And not just that they're so incredibly timid, too, so there was a lot of crawling on rotting leaves and mud :))
I followed it for 2 hours and realized that I would not get closer to it, so I gave up and thought that tomorrow I will be back with tripod and kamoflauge then maybe I will get a little bit closer. But it will probably not remain there tomorrow.

Camera equipment i used: nikon 3Ds and nikon 200-400mm f4 lens.
Click on picture to enlarge them!

Early morning at Endcliff Park

I was off to Redmires yesterday morning, but came home from there disappointed and with hardly any pictures at all. I think it was the strong wind that made the birds stayed away.
But I saw the water vole and got a picture, but from a bad angle.
But early this morning before the sun had even gone up and it was still pretty dark out there so I went down to a park that has two smaller ponds.
For I was down there the night before and the mandarin duck was there, so I thought it might be still there in the morning.
But it was not, but I saw a heron standing and slept on a nest of branches. So I took the opportunity to shoot it and experimented with shutter speeds and more. The heron stood there for a few minutes before it flew away. So I sat down on the bench and to my surprise there comes a kingfisher and lands in the tree above me seven meters away. I managed to take some pictures before it flew away. Then I went on to the oak forest that is near there, and there I had the opportunity to get close to a robin and got some nice pictures of it.
In the woods I also met a few squirrels and they are so wonderful to follow.
I was Pleased with the morning so I returned home.
Photo equipment i used this morning: camera nikon 3D,s and lens nikon 200-400mm f4 and a monopod.
Click a picture to enlarge them!

Nut hunter in the woods

Singing Robin/rödhake

Heron on a nest

Heron/Häger

Kingfisher

Grey wagtail/Forsärla



Water vole from redmires reservoirs