When I first arrived at St Aidan's RSPB reserve, I was intrigued to see a group of birders with binoculars and massive camera lenses, all peering into the scrubby fringe of the pool nearest to the small visitor centre. Of course, I wandered over to see what was going on...
As soon as I got there, I saw a little brown and grey bird hopping around, disappearing into the vegetation and then popping out again somewhere else:
It proved, oddly enough, to be a bearded tit. I've never seen one before and they are usually secretive little birds, living deep in the reedbeds and usually spotted flying over, making a kind of pinging call, or sometimes clinging to a reed. This one was behaving more like a sparrow, hopping around and quite unfazed by the crowd of eager photographers tracking it up and down the shoreline.
My lens is nowhere near long enough for bird photography, so it wasn't easy to get a shot and I didn't want to get in the way of the 'pros'. I set my camera to what I thought might work ( ! - not an expert at this type of photo) and fired off a few shots when the bird revealed itself for a few seconds. These photos are heavily cropped, so the quality is poor but I was still very pleased to see this little charmer.
Apart from that exciting 'spot' I didn't see anything else unusual, though I heard a bittern booming. There are supposed to be black-necked grebes on the reserve but I couldn't see them in the areas I explored. The birds I saw were all the common ones: mute swans, mallard, moorhens and coots, teal, great crested grebes, cormorant, reed bunting, magpie, great and blue tits, black-headed gulls, terns, tufted ducks and the pretty gadwall (below).
Very unusual for these little darlings to be the least bit co-operative about having their photos taken. I've seen them several times but always flitting from one reed bed to another and then promptly disappearing. Your heavily-cropped photos show the bird well and look fine on my screen.
ReplyDeleteThat must have ben a thrill to see it! I love your swan pic, Jenny!
ReplyDeleteThat swan pic really stands out.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what birds think of cameras.
On a 20 million pixel screen your "spot" has come out very well indeed, Jenny. Your new camera is really good!
ReplyDeleteOh you were lucky Jenny, I would have been thrilled with these shots, the small birds are so hard to focus on. Your white swans are fabulous, what a shot!
ReplyDelete