Communal Bird Photography Thread

[blackfox]

juvenile goldfinch

[antpitta]

Not a bird I get to see very often (let alone photograph) so it was nice to see this Pied Flycatcher in the bushes next to the Bird's Eye factory at Ness Point, Lowestoft this evening. Quite probably a Scandinavian bird on it's way back to Africa.

OM-1, 300mm f4 PRO + MC14 (ISO 800 1/640 f5.6) Cropped & de-noised in DxO Pl5.

[Olybirder]

Very nice. I was there early this afternoon but all I
found was lots of Wheatears on the net posts. I need to try harder.

Ron

[antpitta]

You may just need to try later in the afternoon! I'd heard that on Friday birds seemed to be turning up during the day and that by the evening there were good numbers of Wheatears and the odd Whinchat on the Denes and around the old nets. On Saturday we didn't get there until about 5PM but then saw 6+ Wheatear, 3 Whinchats, the Pied Flycatcher and the (present for 3rd day) very flighty but very smart male Common Redstart - all either in the row of bushes along the North side of the factory or on the net posts. Good luck if you try gain (I managed to get photos of all 4 species which are on my twitter feed).

[shakyHands]

Great Egret scores some lunch

There's something in there ...




Going for it....



Score!!



A tighter crop -

[blackfox]

one for Chris (antpitta) showing the definite orange eye surround on this long tailed tit ..I ensured this time that there was nothing done in editing that could possibly affect the colour of the eyes surround

[antpitta]

Just goes to show how easy it is to miss details like that even with something you see everyday! Thanks.

[blackfox]

yeah it could be a local variation or sex /age related but I had to do another one to make sure .

[blackfox]

and another from the same session robin this time

[Matt_Hirst]

Had a good day today, was after Grey Wagtails:

Grey Wagtail 2 by Matt Hirst, on Flickr

but got interrupted by a new location for:

Kingfisher by Matt Hirst, on Flickr

Spent a nice few hours sat in a river, ok was on the rocky edge with feet in the water.

Matt

[antpitta]

Nice wagtail in a fitting location by the looks of it - and a pretty decent bonus bird.

[BDennis]

This Long-tailed tit in my garden had eyelids that are more red than orange antpitta blackfox


Long-Tailed Tit by Bill Dennis, on Flickr

[antpitta]

I'm sufficiently intrigued that I'll be trying to catch up with some of our local flock in the next few days (particularly as it's fairly quiet otherwise around the garden). I definitely need the practice anyway as I do find them tricky beggars to shoot!

[BDennis]

It's such an interesting subject that a study has been done and a paper written on it here:

"Changes in the eye-lid colour of Long-tailed Tits"

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00063658409476812

This is the summary:

"Long-tailed Tits captured in mist-nets showed
variations of eye-lid colour from pale yellow to
deep red. Individual changes occurred within a
few minutes, and were sufficient to account for a
changing frequency of colour categories in the
population during winter. Birds with redder eyelids..were heavier, and were more likely to make
distress calls when handled. These results suggest
that eye-lid colour reflects a bird's internal state or
'mood'."

[blackfox]

Weird how just one photo and a comment can lead to a discussion over something we as a group of wildlife photographers have never noticed before . After looking through my Flickr stream I’m still of the mind it’s more to do with age of the bird than stress though

[BDennis]

Here's an LTT I got in the garden a few weeks before with a yellow eyelid. I had noticed the colour around their eyes before but hadn't really taken in the variation before the subject came up here!


Long-Tailed Tit by Bill Dennis, on Flickr

[blackfox]

one from this morning showing the impact of the water shortage even on a sea marsh .. the brackish pools are drying up fast not many places left to spread out till the next high spring tide ,if it comes up that far

[antpitta]

It says a lot about how things have changed since the great drought of 1976 that the array of Spoonbills and Little Egrets don't even warrant a mention

[blackfox]

got the great white egret down the road today to

[antpitta]

You just need a Cattle Egret for the set! Plenty of them around these days as well.

[blackfox]

as requested by ant pitta sorry its a nikon shot OOPS
holy flying cows by jeff cohen, on Flickr

[blackfox]

won't be long till they return

[Olybirder]

I went to the old net posts at Lowestoft North Denes yesterday and there were several Wheatears flitting about, all of them rather distant. This is the best I could do. Today we went for a walk along Gorleston cliffs and promenade and saw seven Wheatears, some of them less than 5 metres away and posing beautifully. However I never take my camera on my exercise walks as there are so many people about and I feel rather conspicuous with my long lens. I guess that's the way it goes.



Ron

[antpitta]

A classic Denes Wheatear portrait! No idea why they often seem so flighty there as they ought to be quite used to people given the location.

[antpitta]

Whinchat also on The Denes at Lowestoft - just a different post to Ron's Wheatear, above.

[Olybirder]

Another distant Wheatear at Lowestoft today. This one is quite distinctively marked and coloured and I suspect that it is a male in winter plumage. Hopefully Chris (Antpitta) or somebody else can tell me what it really is.



Ron

[antpitta]

It's a Wheatear 😉😉

[MJ224]

Wow, lovely shot. How far was it, or what sort of crop. Worked very well..:-)