Aerial Jousting

‘Been going through a crises of ‘mojo’ lately where I’ve not been happy with my photography.  Apart from simply not getting the opportunities of the image, those I have don’t seem to be as sharp or in focus as they should, or in some other way technically flawed which I’ve been putting this down to user error.  Perhaps I need to get back to basics or try a different subject, I don’t know.  Any how here are some recent images of some Kittiwakes taken high in the breeding season at the coast recently, just to keep the blog ticking over.

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Tyne Bridge Kittiwakes revisited

Another visit to the local population of Kittiwakes was made today.  As well as any general photographic opportunities, I wanted to photograph them whilst showing their surroundings as it’s in the middle of a city with lots of activity and landmarks about. Conditions were ideal with lots of luxurious bright sunshine giving me the rare chance to stop down to a narrower aperture so giving me a greater depth of field whilst still giving me a fast enough shutter speed and low ISO. Although I was able to get quite a few shots looking down which included both the Kittiwakes and some kind of background, they weren’t flying along that part of the skyline I’d hoped for and so including some of the more prominent buildings of Newcastle. I find it amazing that, what is basically a coastal bird, is happy nesting on a city bridge a couple of metres next to a busy and noisy road, not to mention all the passer-by's though most of these seemed oblivious to all noise and drama of these birds raising their young right next to where they were walking past. Their nests seemed very precariously placed on narrow ledges where it would seem a gust of wind would simply sweep them away, but I guess it is just a replication of what would have been their natural environment on coastal cliff ledges.  Today they had to contend with a rare heatwave and, despite the parents trying to shade their young, all were panting furiously to try and keep cool.

An aperture of f7.1 helped to show more of the background detail

Jockeying for position

Flyby - old and new

Flying over a passer-by below oblivious of the drama above

Parents panting to trying to give the youngsters shade from the heat of the sun

Looking down on precarious nesting ledge to the drop below – note the birds panting to keep cool

View of the Tyne Bridge towards Newcastle

Speckled imagery When I got back I realised how bad my sensor has become over the last few weeks due to the constant lens changes.  Covered in ‘dust spots’, it was so bad I nearly didn’t bother to process the images due to the work involved in cleaning them up.  This is the first time since getting the camera three years ago that I needed a ‘wet’ clean.  Normally a blower or the Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly Brush would do.  Maybe I’ve just become a bit too careless in changing lenses as usually I would switch the camera off and then carefully change the lens, which has served me well until recently when I stopped doing that resulting in the kind of image below.

Dust spots on the cameras sensor

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Kingfishers in the Sun

Last week I encountered what is probably my favourite mammal that I’ve photographed, the Fox.  This week I was able to do the same with my favourite  British bird, the Kingfisher.  After the Bee Eater, this has to be one of most colourful and prettiest bird of which you don’t really realise until you can get up close and look at the colour and detail in its plumage. I’d like to say that this photographing opportunity was brought upon by my diligence and skills in the field but were taken at a local hide.  Normally I prefer not to use hides but on this day I had been out all morning walking around on a hot day and decided to get out of the sun and have a break.  The hide already had a number of photographers in so I new something was up (it’s normally empty) and the recent addition of some strategically placed ‘perches’ around the overlooking water edges meant it was likely Kingfishers.  Having barely glimpsed a Kingfisher in a year never mind photographed one, I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity so set up the Sigma 500mm lens sighted onto one of the perches. I didn’t have to wait long before the first one arrived followed shortly by a second.  I was sure the noise of numerous shutters clattering away would have spooked it but it didn’t – it must have become accustomed to it – and proceeded to catch a healthy supply of fish.  For the next three hours three Kingfishers made regular appearances moving to the various perches giving me the time and opportunity to get some decent images though these reduced quality ones for the blog don’t really show the colours and detail in the plumage, but will eventually upload the original ones to my website.

Having so much time to photograph these Kingfishers gave me the opportunity to try varying the exposure modes, aperture and ISO settings as well as the format.  Most of images were ‘bare’ as no converter was required for most of the time but did need some additional exposure compensation due to the angle of the light.  Strangely, this opportunity was so good I was disappointed with many of my images once I got home and looked at them, though I’m still going through the 4+ gigabyte of images I took.  I can see where I went wrong and hope to get out and have another go photographing them before they disperse (or the hide becomes too crowded with photographers!).

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