Longship Lighthouse

I have been out of action for six weeks carrying a back injury  so today I thought I would try an easy access site  and photograph  the stormy weather. We went to Lands End to photograph the stormy sea breaking around the Longships Lighthouse.

Barnacles,Meds And Teal

Shooting in low light today I was pushing the ISO levels to 2500, mainly to see how the camera performed. An essential component of shooting at high ISO levels is understanding the relationship between ISO and exposure, I am not sure if I am there yet with this discipline as most of my shots were overexposed. I started using centre weighted metering then moved to matrix. I thought the matrix metering gave me better histogram results than center weighted all though I had to alter the exposure compensation to over expose the images, this was mainly due to the reflected light from the water. I also set the camera high ISO noise reduction to high.
ISO 1600

ISO 1600

 ISO 2000

ISO 2000

 ISO 2500

 ISO 2500

Great Northern Diver (Loon)

We decided to walk the dog in a woods near Marazion today along with my son and his family. On the way we stopped of at Longrock pool and noticed the Great Northern Diver. I had left camera at home and only took the Binoculars which is typical of me. I gave Steve Rogers a text as I new he was looking for it yesterday and had no luck. On the way back from our walk I stopped off to see Steve and John Rowe, only to find the GN Diver right under their noses. I had to go home and get my gear to photograph this superb adult in summer plumage. Unfortunately the light was worse than in the morning but beggars can't be choosers.All images taken with a Nikon D300 and a 300 to 800mm sigma zoom.

Snow Bunting

I captured these images of a female Snow Bunting at Pendeen when the Daurian Shrike was also at Pendeen. Some birders were unimpressed of a drab coloured female, but for me they have a beauty in their own right and this individual was very confiding.

Surfers and Gannet

Today, we expected rain so we dressed for rough weather and headed to Sennen Cove, as usual the weather didn't do as predicted and we had some sunshine, so over dressed, and hot we photographed the Gannet and surfers. The  Gannet flock was in reasonably close and diving among the surfers.

A days Birding

It's been a while since I have done a days birding and it turned out to be very successful. The first venue was Hayle estuar,y to hopefully photograph the long staying Ospre,. no luck with that but I did see it. The other species on my list today was the Black Winged Stilt that has been around for a while. More luck with this a it spent most of the time directly in front of me. A surprise was a Glossy Ibis on te site, it was distant but I managed a record shot. The cream of the day was an Isabelline Shrike at Pendeen " what a beauty" also flying around it was a Whinchat and about 10 metre's away a Wryneck appeared from the undergrowth.

Glossy Ibis

Isabelline Shrike

Wryneck

House Martins

This is one Hirundine I have had difficulty in catching up with these little birds. They always seem to fly higher than the Swallows. Tonight good numbers were flying around the house so I connected the 300mm lens with a two times converter and fired around 250 shots to get these. Hand held swapping between VR and no VR out of all those images the shots below are the best, the rest are terrible.

Pendeen Watch

The weather forecast today was supposed to be a North Westerly gusting over 30 mph at times so I went to Pendeen to photograph some of the rarer seabirds on their way south. I got stuck to the bed sheets and didn't get on site until 1100am. The few birders that was on site was leaving, as the wind had veered North East. When this happens the birding switchs off at Pendeen. I stayed until 1600 and got some shots of this close Bonxie (Great Skua) and some Gannet shots as a feeding frenzy took place relatively close, but generally it was poor for birding but a superb day weather wise. All images were taken with a Nikon D300 and a Sigma300/800 f5.6 zoom

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Sanderling Close up

I went to Marazion to catch up with the Citrine Wagtail with camera this time. The day before I caught up with it on the beach about six metres away but only had the binoculars.As usual you don't get a second chance, I couldn't find it on the beach or on the reserve. So I resorted to the old favorite, Sanderling.