Welcome to my photography log which is all about the journey not the image quality!

This space captures my adventures and the images I’ve created since upgrading my camera in the summer of 2024. After two decades with a Canon EOS 350D, I’m now shooting with a Fuji X-T5, paired with the Fuji XF 16-50mm f/2.8-4.8, Fuji XF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 and Fuji XF 500mm f5.6.

For a list of specific species I’ve photographed, see here.

Click on any image to enlarge it.

August 30th 2025 – Hailing Island

It took an hour to get to the beach, and after 6 photographs the rain started…..

I an idea in mind for this afternoon, and think I pulled it off. I took a few images but even using a solid tripod they were blurred, but I’ve heard about this on Youtube. So, once I turned of IBIS (in body image stabilization) I got the effect I wanted. The first image is just too show what conditions were like before I slowed down the shutter speed. Using a 10 stop plus a 3 stop neutral density filter to reduce the light enough to allow a 4 minute exposure and f13 and ISO 125.

I’m not sure which edit I prefer…

August 28th 2025 – In the Garden

Back in the garden today. As before, taken by pre-focusing and leaving the camera on a tripod to take one image per second until the battery runs out. If I sit in the garden, the birds stay away so short of getting a hide, its the only way. All images were taken at 1/800s at f5.6 with ISO 2500. It was overcast so I could not get a higher shutter speed without increasing ISO even further, and the noise can get really bad on an APC sensor like I have. Mostly Great Tit‘s and occasional Blue Tit. I used the XF 500mm today which definitely shows more detail and better feather detail than the XF 70-300 I have used previously in the garden.

Naturally all the birds fly away when the Squirrel arrives. The feeder is made entirely from Metal, so I do wonder if the squirrels teeth get harmed when trying to get peanut kernels like this. There is no Squirrel dentist to make repairs!

August 24th 2025 – Tice’s Meadow

Another visit to Tice’s Meadow Nature Reserve. This time without any silly errors setting my exposure compensation unknowingly. As before I’m using the Fuji XF 500mm f5.6 with the 1.4x Teleconverter. You can’t get enough reach here, every bird seems to prefer the far side of the water.

All the usual birds were present, Swan, Canada Goose, Coot, Mallard etc. Not shown is a Common Sandpiper which I did not realise I had captured until I got home, and it was out of focus in the background of another bird.

Today I saw a Lapwing for the first time. Seemed to be on its own. It has incredible iridescent feathers on its back. Huge crops to show this, which loses image quality unfortunately, but the birds are just so long. Click on each image to expand it.

This is a young Great Crested Grebe, and seems to be one its own too.

These two images of a Cormorant are the same photograph but show how much I have to crop even when using a very long lens. Check out how beautiful the feathers are. It was on the same branch yesterday.

There is another Cormorant preening in the centre of this group.

Snipe camoflage them selves into the environment really well. The yukky weeds hanging on everything is weed. The water level is at least 2 feet higher over winter.

A Grey Heron.

August 23rd 2025- Tice’s Meadow

These images are the result of nearly 2 hours sat in the hide at Tice’s Meadow. The hide is a long steal container, with one side removed to entry, and with a window cut into the other 3 sides. This gets us right up to the waters edge and relatively hidden. On this occasion there were 3 older men using binoculars and a long telephoto DSLR. This was good because they pointed out some birds I would probably not have otherwise noticed.

This Black-Necked Grebe is a bird I knew nothing about, but in the UK there are only approximately 55K. It spent most of the time with its head tucking to the feathers on it back resting, but I did manage a few shots of it awake. It has a bright red eye.

All of the shots today are taken on the XF 500mm with a 1.4x teleconverter. The teleconverter increase the focal length at the expense of image quality, and many of these shots are cropped heavily too. The birds always seem to prefer the far bank despite using a hide.

I first photographed this Swan last week, and it still has fishing line hanging from its throat. I expect it will be there until it passes away.

This is Snipe was pointed out to me by the old men. Otherwise I don’t think I would have noticed it. In the middle image there are two. Shame the background of these images isn’t very appealing.

A Cormorant preening itself.

This Grey Heron started on the far bank, then flew over to my side. I didn’t notice until it was too late to photograph in flite though.

A Juvenile Herring Gull.

August 17th 2025 – Tice’s Meadow

If you click on the Swan images to expand them, you may be able to see that one of these swans had ingested what looks like a long piece of wire, definitely not weed that they feed off the bottom of water for. It was feeding in the first two images, but in the third you can see the wire hanging down. Perhaps is old fishing line of something, but I hope it manages to get it out because these things can kill a swan.

If you look closely at the birds on the island, although they are mostly Canada Geese there are some Greylag Geese (orange bill) along the front, some Cormorant on top and Grey Heron in the background.

August 17th 2025 – Thursley Nature Reserve

In the spring Thursley was very busy with birds, but now the breeding season is over there really aren’t that many birds I can find. A couple of Canada Geese in the long grass, some female Mallard and a lone Little Grebe (at long range) was about it.

August 15th 2025 – In the Garden

This evening sit on the patio prompted a pigeon to visit and sun itself on the lawn. Apparently they do this in order to put direct sunlight onto the parasites that live among their feathers.

This an adult male Black Bird which is molting, something they do after the breeding season is over. It will have new feathers in a few weeks. The brown is a juvenile female Black Bird sunning itself.

August 14^th 2025 – In the Garden

My first image of a Song Thrush in the garden this evening.

This Magpie is shedding feathers. According to google this is normal after the breeding season is over.

August 13^th 2025 – In The Garden

This Squirrel sat for quite some time eating whatever he had in his hands.

August 12^th 2025 – In The Garden

A pair of JackDaw‘s perched themselves at the top of a Leylandii in the garden.

August 10^th 2025 – Tice’s Meadow

A quick visit to Tice’s Meadow before getting home to listen to the Charity Shield. I saw several Herons but none of my shots seem to have been in focus, probably due to heat haze considering the conditions. On my last visit there were huge numbers of Jackdaw, and although they were present it was in nearly such large numbers.

Hundreds of Canada Geese, and if you look carefully at the birds in the water, the birds with orange beaks are actually Greylag Geese.

Checkout the huge grey webbed feet on these Coot.

There were several Little Egret, but all a long way away on the other side of the lake.

and a few others

Overall I had too many images that were soft or not in focus. Potentially its heat haze, but I need to close down the aperture a little and try f8 and not just rely on 1/1000s. I need to remember that the longer the focal length the shorted the depth of field.

August 9th 2025 – In the Garden

I should have gone out to take some photographs, but because I am tired and lazy, I just sat in the garden instead. This is Great Tit that likes the peanuts, but has a strange growth on its neck. I have no idea what it is, just hope its harmless. All images on the Fuji XF 500mm f5.6, which seems to be glued to my camera these days, taken at f5.6 at f8 and 1/800s. ISO ranges from 800 to 2500.

August 7^th 2025 – In the Garden

I should clear out all the dead wood in the garden, but the birds do like to perch on it.

In previous years our local Squirrels have been completely grey, but this year they are more brown. We don’t get Red Squirrels sadly. It wasn’t even raining!

August 6^th 2025 – In the Garden

I had to get up early to support some customer database upgrades, so I was at my desk 0630. Around 7am I just happened to look out of the window and saw a flock of small birds moving from bushes onto the bird feeder and back again. They re-treated to the bushes every time a Magpie hopped over to the bird feeder, and even onto it to feed on occasion. I’m used to seeing Blue Tits in the garden, but normally they are single or in a pair. This time there were 4 of them, with a single Great Tit.

We think of Magpie’s being black and white, but they actually have marvelous petrol blue feathers when they open up their wings.

Being so early in the morning, and cloudy, I could not get enough light so many of the images were taken a 8000+ ISO, which I very noisy on this camera. I’ve cleaned them up but it does mean they are a little soft as a result. There is never enough light for a crop sensor camera!!

August 2^nd 2025 – In the Garden

I’m on call so can’t really go out. Instead its a shot of one of the nuts are growing on the oak trees and a Great Tit. This was the only bird I saw in the hour I sat on the patio. During the spring the garden was very busy with birds, but not so much now.

July 18^th 2025 – Stormont (Northern Ireland)

We visited Stormont for a guided tour and lunch in the fancy members restaurant.

I could not fit the entire building into a single shot, so I stitched two together, which accounts for the warped look on the right.

This Heron was at the same spot several evening in a row. I think its waiting for the tide to go out and leave water trapped around the rocks and then feed. The dark birds with an orange bill are Oyster Catchers.

July 17th 2025 – Bangor and Cloughey (Northern Ireland)

Bangor Castle was our first stop, not particularly large and not a patch on Lincoln Castle. We parked in a local car park and I though I was paying for parking when it turns out I was registering my card with the app. So, got a parking fine of £45 if paid within 30 days or £90 after that. I paid same day :-). On a day with better weather

This Heron was at the same spot several evening in a row. I think its waiting for the tide to go out and leave water trapped around the rocks and then feed. The dark birds with an orange bill are Oyster Catchers.

July 16^th 2025 – Rathlin Island (Northern Ireland)

This was always intended to be the highlight of the trip for me. A 2 hour drive to Ballycastle, to catch a 40 minutes ferry ride to Rathlin Island, and because you are permitted to take a vehicle, a 20 minute bus ride to far eastern edge to visit the RSPB Seabird Centre. And then in reverse at the end of the day.

It is now that I realized I had a camera problem, but at this point thought that perhaps my new lens had been damaged on the flight over. It was another 48 hours before I realized why I could not get the camera to focus as I intended, and ended up using a smaller aperture that I might otherwise to give my images a better chance of being acceptably sharp by increasing the depth of field. The camera was focusing but not in the way I wanted. The focus box went green but never on the bird. Only two days later did I realize that the focus mode has changed from continuous to single shot without me knowing. Hence as I moved the lens around, and at 500mm hand held (750 full frame equivalent) it hard not too, the bird mode just did not seem to be picking up the birds and usually focused to the side or behind them. A rookie error, and not really the best time make it after such a long trip. The focus mode switch was set to single shot rather than continuous!!!

From the RSPB Seabird Centre its a walk down a LOT of steps to get to the viewing platform. I had expected to be a lot closer to the birds, but in the event you needed a pair of binoculars or very long lens even to identify what birds were present.

So, each of these birds is a breed I’ve never shot before. I’ve done my best to tidy up the images and pick out the sharpest. Actually, they aren’t too bad.

This first image shows just how stunning the scenery is here. The Kittiwake and Fulmer shots were taken from the side of the cliff face on the right. Notice the green area at the bottom, that is where the Puffins and Razorbills were. A long way down, which is why I needed the 500mm, but sadly forgot my 1.4 teleconverter. In fact, in this situation a 2x teleconverter would have been useful, the 500mm has such good image quality it would work well enough.

Don’t forget you can click on any of these images to expand them.

The Kittiwakes flying in and land on these tiny ledges and and somehow manage to build a next on them. In the second image you can see 3 young Kittiwakes with the down feathers that have not yet left the nest.

These Fulmer were nesting quite high up, so I was able to fill the frame without a big crop. In fact, with the 500mm they are too close but I could not move further away because of all the other people on the viewing platform. I took this holding camera over the edge of the platform, pointed hard right and you can see the edge of cliff face on the right side.

Here you see a group of 6 Guillemot and three Puffins. It was Puffins that I most wanted to see (for the first time). Without the 500mm and a good crop you would hardly know what they were given how far away they are. Sadly, there was also no opportunity to change position or the viewing angle. It would have been wonderful to be able to get down to their level and fill the frame. Speaking to another birdwatcher, they told me that last year there was another viewing platform, much lower down which I try for if I ever go back.

To nest the Puffins burrow into the soft earth and completely disappear from sight. There is a lone Razorbill in this image too.

This Puffin had just landed on the large stone, and had to flap its wings in order to walk up to the top where it perched. You can see the back end of a Puffin sticking out of its burrow.

Some other images from Rathlin Island.

July 15^th 2025 – Bangor and Cloughey (Northern Ireland)

Painted end gables are something of a stereotype I think for Northern Ireland, but at least this doesn’t refer to the troubles.

Today was a slow day spend avoiding the rain!

This rainbow images was taken at dusk standing right outside the house we were staying in.

July 14^th 2025 – Scrabo and Bally Walter (Northern Ireland)

Some stunning views on the walk up to the tower and very windy at the top.

These are from Bally Walter which is just up the cost from where we stayed.

July 13^th 2025 – Southampton to Belfast City

The first day of our trip to Northern Ireland. We had a lot of trouble booking accommodation at the last minute because it turns out The Open Gold Tournament was happening in Northern Ireland at the same time. Callums first time flying and my first time on an aircraft with a propeller.

I did take some pictures with my X-T5 but I must have messed up somehow because they are all just black, like you would get if you left the lens cap on. I definitely did not shoot with the lens cap on.

July 10^th 2025 – Farnham Heath

A fairly short walk, only 1.2 miles in 30 minutes or so, but it was 31c! I felt shattered and slowed to a crawl every time I go up even the slightest slope. I didn’t see any birds to photograph, only a small bird here and there but moving to quickly to capture. Being outside at 3pm was probably the issue, its too hot and they are hiding away keeping cool. So, no nice bird shots today, just a landscape panorama.

July 9^th 2025 – In the Garden

This Grey Squirrel has a good amount of Red Squirrel in it! Would be nice to see the red come back.

July 8^th 2025 – In the Garden

A juvenile Blue Tit on the bird feeder.

July 7^th 2025 – Farnham Heath

This is my first time to Farnham Heath. I was very quiet, a few small birds flying around to its hard to take photographs of small birds that move so quickly and look so small in the frame.

These first images are a juvenile Goldfinch. Its only a few days ago that I took my first ever pictures of a Goldfinch but this time its a juvenile that has not yet developed all that colour in the face.

The first bird here on the left is a juvenile Robin, but I have not yet been able to identify what the other bird is. Send my an email if you know what it is!

Here is a Stonechat and Great Crested Woodpecker.

July 6^th – Workflow

For a while now my workflow has been to pick out the images I prefer, then process them through DXO Pureraw 5 and load the ‘.dng’ produced into Capture One. This provides a little sharpening and removes a LOT of the noise. After I have finished any edits on the image I generate a ‘jpg’ which is what you see on these pages. However, I can see the Capture One does a better job of rendering colours. So, in future I’m only going to use DXO Pureraw 5 on images which really need noise removing, which is does exceptionally well but I can’t then recover the colours. I guess thats why is called Colour Science. And Fuji is famous for its Colour Science and film simulations so I don’t want to sacrifice that unless its really necessary. What I’m not going to do though and go back and change all the images I’ve already processed and uploaded to website.

July 5^th 2025 – Frensham Little Pond

This was an early evening visit on an overcast day. This heavy crop is a parent child Great Crested Grebe, the first time I’ve spotted a juvenile.

I could not resist these trees with such white trunks. The 500mmm is too long to get the entire tree in frame and I had no space to step back.

A Black Headed Gull

I can’t resist a good Crow on the ground. An underate bird because its so common.

July 4^th 2025 – Thursley Nature Reserve

I decided to bunk or work at 4pm, they’ve had their pound of flesh so why not. These first 2 birds, are both Stonechat. Its a young female on the left and a male on the right.

This is the first time I’ve also captured a Pied Wagtail.

And in yet another first for me, a Goldfinch.

These were all taken with a shutter speed of 1/1600, but clearly still not fast enough. They move so quickly!

According to a google image search this is Fireweed. Doesn’t really look like a weed though.

July 3^rd 2025 – In the Garden

I glanced out of my office window this morning, and the bird feeder was crowded! Managed to get some nice images though it would have been better in sunlight as I had a lot noise to remove. In order these are Great Tit, Juvenile Blue Tit, Great Spotted Woodpecker. This is the first time I’ve seen a Great Spotted Woodpecker. I seen a Green Woodpecker in the garden a few times, but never managed to take a picture of it.

July 1^st – In the Garden

When I took this first shot I casually assumed it was a Pidgeon and didn’t notice until I opened the files on my computer that in fact is a Collared Dove. That will teach me to take a proper look at what I’m photographing in future. The Woodpidgeon was taken shortly and is for comparison. I like the first image only because its my first Collared Dove, but there is no doubting the Woodpidgeon is stronger. I was actually perched on a leylandii and keeping a close eye one me.

This Robin confused me a few minutes. It hasn’t got the red breast I expected, and I see then in the garden every day. This in fact is a juvenile Robin, and the red has not yet developed. It was also keeping a close eye one me, but gradually gained confidence and ended up walking within about 2 meters of me.

I noticed a couple of days ago that the moon looked incredible as the sky darkened to a navy blue. Both days since I have forgotten to get my camera out. So, this was it during the early evening. Shot with the XF 500mm with a 1.4x teleconverter making it 700mm, that’s over 1000mm in full frame terms, which is crazy and hard to hold steady on the subject.

None of these shots today needs any cropping… so nice to have a long lens at last.

June 30^th 2025 – In the Garden

Today is new lens day. My first time using the XF 500mm f5.6.

I have no idea what happened to this Blackbird, but his head is remarkably flat on top and the feathers are missing.

June 22^nd 2025 – Thursley Nature Reserve

There was a strong breeze at Thursley today, so not many birds to be found and landscape photographs needed a shorter focal length than I had on the camera. Its a pain to change lenses and back again so I’ve left landscape images for another day. Using the Merlin Id app I identified this bird as a Stonechat. Its far away, but its still small in the frame, and with a bright

background difficult to capture with a longer lens. Maybe one day. (I did!)

This Curlew made a brief appearance, but I have my shutter speed far to slow so most were unusably blurred.

I think these are Black-tailed Skimmer Dragon Flies.

Cotton-Grass

June 21^st 2025- In the Garden

This Wood Pidgeon confidently wandered up the lawn and picked up and peanut that had fallen from the bird feeder. Made no attempt to get onto the feeder, so I suspect its too heavy for that.

June 21^st 2025 – Tice’s Meadow

I seen some nice photographs taken at Tice’s Meadow posted to Facebook, so I thought I should take a look myself. Perhaps I didn’t go the right part of the meadow, but it didn’t seem that great. There is a large body of water, with a LOT of birds, but it is surrounded by a fence and I can’t really get close enough.

This was growing at the side of the footpath and is called ‘Pyramidal Orchid’. There is a huge number of Jackdaws, and clearly this one noticed me as I stook below.

Huge numbers of Jackdaw. Some of these images were taken with my 70-300 with a 1.x teleconverter which gives a focal length of 420mm. Even so, many of these are a huge crop, so the image quality isn’t great.

I did manage to capture Great White Egret for the first time. It is similar to the Little Egret which were also present, but larger and with a yellow beak. The above caveat still applies to the image quality.

A Black Headed Gull landing and a Coot.

June 20^th 2025- In the Garden

Another session siting in the garden to let the stress of the work day wash away. I did see a Green Woodpecker swoop in and land on the trunk of one of our Oak trees, but before I could get it in framed up, it flew off. I get a few more images of a Robin in the sun though. I’m beginning got think I should try a higher shutter speed, say 1/2000 and perhaps changing to the electronic shutter to see if this helps sharpen things up a little further.

June 19^th 2025 – In the Garden

Today I spent my early evening sat in the garden listening to the birds, watching the leaves on the oak trees move in the breeze. The Blue Tit is a juvenile, which is why its not very blue yet. The Magpie was perched on the very top of the tallest Cyprus tree.

This Squirrel stood still like a statue watching me from halfway up the lawn, before retreating back to the safety of oak treea and promptly digging up a nut which is what its holding in the second image.

June 18^th 2025 – In the Garden

I have discovered a new app called ‘Merlin Id’ which you can use to identify birds from their song in real time. So now I’m slowing learning to identify birds from their song. At least I can if its common to my garden, which so far is mainly Blackbirds, Robins, Magpies, Blue Tits, Coal Tits and to my surprise Spotted Flycatcher, Wren, Dunnock, Treecreeper, Goldcrest and Great Spotted Woodpecker; None of which I have ever seen. <edit: see above for images of the Great Spotted Woodpecker on July 3rd>

I did spot a pair of woodpigeons on the branch of an oak tree, a Robin in shade and a scruffy Blue Tit today.

June 14^th 2025 – Bushey Park

I didn’t realize until I got into London and saw the signs, but I had to enter the Low Emissions Zone, £12.50 I had no anticipated.

I went to photograph the deer which roam the park. Apparently there are 320 but I only found a few. I think they are spread out around the park and often hidden by the heather which is left to grow.

I took a lot of Deer photographs, and its been difficult to cull that down to a small number to display here. These were grazing under tree surrounded by heather. Whenever I moved they would look up to keep an eye on me, but if I remained stationary they just ignored me and continued grazing. The park website suggests keep a distance of 50 metres away from them.

Near the car park in centre of park there is a stream.

Why on earth posses people to think its OK to get so close to a pair to Mute Swans that have a newborn Signet. The children are standing back at least. At the very least getting close stresses the swans, and risks them getting aggressive in defense of their signet.

The poor female Morhen was being relentlessly pursued by the mail. He wash chasing here on and on an on, trying to get onto her back.

The adult Deer were in groups of 2. The only young deer I saw were all in once group, grazing and moving together.

This deer seemed quite happy feeding from within the stream. Helps keep cool I suppose.

The Princess Diana Memorial Fountain was covered in scaffolding for repairs, but was home to a good number of Canada Geese with young one.

Egyption Goose

This duck was a surprise. I had no idea what it was until I got home and checked my guide book. Its listed at the back in a section for ‘Rarities. It is a Red-Crested Pochard.

Canadian Geese

Coot‘s nesting on the lake.

Another first for me. A Jackdaw, and there were lots of them often coming to ground. I did see Parakeet flying between trees, but didn’t manage to capture one.

And to finish off 2 picture of Mallard. The second is black with white on the chest and is a hybrid Mallard, to result of breeding between a wild Mallard and a domestic duck. I have no idea why the Egyption Goose was strutting with its wings out, it did get within 2 feet of me so perhaps its trying to show dominance or maybe it was drying it wings? The Morhen image is probably the best I’ve taken of a Morhen.

June 8^th 2025 – Mucking About in the Garden

An image search on google says they are “Fox and Cubs“, “HawkWeed” (actually another name for Fox and Cubs), “Meadow Buttercup“, “Common Daisy“, Part of a Cyprus Tree though I don’t know the variety and “Common Mock Orange“

June 8^th 2025 – At Home

The Moon was out… Handheld at 300mm using 1/125s and ISO 12800. Next time I will use a tripod for a longer exposure at a low iso to see how much that improves the image.

June 7^th 2025 – South Common, Lincoln

In between rain showers I took a walk on the South Common. The circus are visited on the bottom end, but I was more interested in the higher end where I can see more birds and take some long range images of the Cathedral. Took my first photographs of a Partridge, Whitethroat and Ring Necked Pheasant too.

May 28^th 2025 – In the Garden

Photographed this juvenile Blue Tit in the garden in the early evening.

May 24^th 2025 – In the Garden

I’m on call this week, so I can’t get out as normal. Instead, I put up a birdbox. Its probably too late for this year, but hopefully it will get used next spring. I then sat in a chair and waited for the Magpie to appear. Its been a regular visitor.

I’m frustrated that these images are just not as sharp as they should be. My shutter speed was high enough, I was using f8, continuous autofocus and bird tracking mode selected, but this they are not as sharp as I would like. Is this my lens, my technique or just the famous inability of a fuji camera to properly focus. 🙁

May 17^th 2025 – Thursley Nature Reserve

This is the Hobby, a falcon that’s recently been drawing many photographers to Thursley Nature Reserve. Despite spotting three in the air at once, I only managed to capture distant shots. Consequently, these images are heavily cropped, which explains their lower quality. These agile hunters are drawn to the reserve by the abundant dragonflies, which provide a plentiful food source.

I hit a snag with my camera settings, and the white balance is off in all these shots. Plus, I ran into some unexpected website issues, so this entry won’t be as polished as usual. I’ll get things back on track for my next post!

The Curlew are still there, but this time I only captured them at long range.

I first photographed this particular Canada Goose last weekend. Its strikingly darker plumage immediately sets it apart from the others, allowing for greater detail to show in its feathers. True to form for many birds, it consistently kept its back to me. Nevertheless, it’s undeniably the most handsome Canada Goose I’ve encountered so far.

A pair of Little Grebe’s.

After a few days of uncertainty, I’ve finally settled on this white bird being a Pekin Duck.

The best pictures I’ve yet taken of a Crow in flight to date.

And no Photo walk is complete with the Mallard. 🙂

May 17^th 2025 – Bishops Meadow

A stroll around Bishops Meadow. I think this might be my first time, certainly in the last 10 years.

May 12^th 2025 – The Squirrels are back

Squirrels have been a familiar sight in my garden for years, but this year they vanished—until today. I have no clue why, but seeing this one from my office window had me quickly reaching for my camera. In my hurry, I didn’t enable animal focus tracking, relying on the standard focus box. This likely explains why some shots aren’t as sharp as I’d like.

May 11^th 2025 – Thursley Nature Reserve

I don’t normally return to the same place in such quick succession, but I wasn’t alone becuase I ran into the same bird photographer as I had the previous day. He was hoping to capture the Hobby, but there was no sign of it, and it was much windier to day so not as good for capturing a bird like that anyway.

At some point in the day, without noticing I must have move the aperture and was taking images at f22 and consequently using a very high iso. Not ideal, but such is life.

Yesterday I captured a group of 3 Mallard ducks flying and managed the same today. I’m not sure if its the same three but it seems likely. I’m really pleased with these.

The image quality on this set of images isn’t so good, because they are a much deeper crop. But its a nice sequence of a Mallard coming into land.

These are my favorite shots of the afternoon. A Curlew in flight. They make a loud song when flying so you know immediately when they are flying, but once they land they are so well camouflaged they are impossible to spot.

A pair of Tufted Ducks, the male has the white sides. And I can’t miss out the crow.

I can’t go to Thursley without a tree or two. I like the colours on these.

May 10^th 2025 – Thursley Nature Reserve

I came across a couple of old men with long lenses on the boards, so I asked them what they had found to photograph. They were taking photographs of a Hobby, a type of Falcon. (Yes, I know I chopped the branches off the width of the tree, but there are only so many times I can be bothered to take off the 70-300 and replace it with the 16-50, only to swap it back again)

I hung around at the far end of the boards, talking with some other photographers who were waiting to capture the same bird. I didn’t see a Hobby, but I did capture my first Curlew which makes a surprising amount of noise with its song as it flies.

Three Mallard ducks, one female (brown) and two male.

First a Canada Goose sitting on its nest, and I think the second is also a Canada Goose although it seems to have a darker body, but perhaps its the perspective.

I also saw my first Little Grebe. This is the same photograph full size and cropped in.

The reason the Hobby was expected is that this is the start of the Dragon Fly season, and the Hobby likes to eat them. So, I had to have a go at capturing them myself but as soon as you have them framed up and in focus they move on. I had more success when the landed on the grass to rest.

And finally, you can’t go to Thursley Nature Reserve without some landscape images.

{Update} Reviewing my picture a couple of days later I realize I missed out a pair of Greylag Geese in the distance. This is the first time I have captured these. Not shown here, I also captured a series of out of focus shots of a lapwing for the first time.

May 1^st 2025 – Return of the Blue Tits

They didn’t stay for long, but they are back!

April 30^th 2025 – Where have all the birds gone!

I sat my camera up on a tripod just like I have been doing for days now. Set it to take one image per second and left it to do its thing. Only visiting every 90 minutes or so to change the memory card and battery. Today is the first time I did not capture a single bird on the feeder! Normally I get lots of images of birds on the feeder and an occasional image of a bird in flight on their way to or from the feeder. Why would the birds suddenly be ignoring my feeder, do they get bored of peanuts or have they found a better source of food?

The other strange thing is that for as long as I can remember we see squirrels in the garden and they also like to take peanuts from bird feeders. We have oaks trees in the garden so squirrels are not a surprise. But this year I have not seen a single squirrel, so where have they gone and why??

April 29^th 2025 – Filming for a change

I used the camera to record video of the feeder for 1.5hrs, and not a single bird went to feed. Where have all the birds gone! After that failure I took a few photographs, but they are really sharp enough for my liking. Its difficult to get right, so I’ll just have to keep trying. They look OK as small images but once you have them at full size on a large monitor the quality is lacking really.

April 28^th 2025 – Better Tits

It was nice and sunny day, so I got a chance to learn from previous days and dial my setting in a bit better. These are all taken (in manual, because I rarely do anything else these days except occasionally auto ISO) 1/4000s at f7.1 and 1250 ISO. I would prefer an aperture of f11 to increase the depth of field but that means compromising on the shutter speed. Today, I could have done that, because all the images captured were of Blue Tits on the feeder. What I’m really hoping to catch are birds as they take off from the feeder which are more likely to have their wings out spread.

I set the camera up with the feeder on the left with plenty of space to the right, ready to capture the birds as they fly. Today I only caught them on the feeder, so to get these I’ve had to crop in close which reduces the image from 40 megapixels down to 4 megapixels.

April 25^th 2025 – Yet More Birds in Flight…

Isn’t it interesting that birds fold there wings up when coming into land, and just rely on grabbing the feeder with the feet… The 3rd image is a Nuthatch coming into land. The others are Blue Tits taking off. I also notice that the Blue Tits are easily the scruffiest of the tits I capture images off. I have no idea if its just the ones that visit my garden which a scruffy, with feathers out of place and black bald patches on their fronts, or whether all Blue Tits are like this. Scruffy garden, scruffy tits.

Perhaps I should put a nesting box out for them.

April 24^th 2025 – More Birds in Flight

The sun came out, so the tripod and camera came out too. This first shot very nearly nailed it. The image I’m trying to capture would have the bird to the side of the feeder, allowing me to crop the feeder out of the image. The image quality isn’t where I’ve like to be, but clearly I’m going in the right direction. If can get a day with more sun, that might help but at the moment, I’m just not getting enough light to really capture what I’m looking for with 1/2500 and f10. Since I’m pre-focusing on the feeder I need some depth of field, but I suspect I’m going to have to compromise and try f5.6 to keep the shutter speed up but reduce the ISO. This image was 1/2500s and f10 at ISO 2500. I reduced noise by pre-processing in DxO Pureraw 5 but it can’t work miracles. I used a mask on the background to reduce the exposure and turn the grainy ugly green to black, but think perhaps I’ve taken it too far.

and a couple of near misses…

April 21^st 2025 – Early morning flight

I decided today to switch things up. I tried to catch the birds in flight, as they cam in to land on the feeder, to just as they were taking off. According to Dr Google, the most active time of the day is first thing in the morning, and since I woke up at 06:30 (because I’m old and cannot sleep anymore) I made a start.

In order to capture the action without it turning in a blurry mess I need a fast shutter speed. Since 1/1600 wasn’t enough in the previous days, I opted for 1/2500 which does seem to do the trick. Since I cannot be sure be sure exactly what direct the bird will arrive from, I need a deep focus plane with necessitates a small aperture. Since f11 had worked well this weekend I opted for f13.

So, that I did not have to change the battery so often, I decided to power the camera from a power bank, but this was a miserable failure as it did not stop the camera depleting the batter just as quickly as before, it resulted the very expensive sounding electrical buzz. So, I had to abandon that idea and go back to changing batteries.

As you can so easily see, there simply was not enough light to use these settings. I think it will work on a bright sunny day, but today was overcast and simply too early in the morning. Having manually set the shutter speed and aperture, I allows auto ISO to pick whatever was needed for a properly exposed image. In every case, it choose 12800 which is the maximum ISO on this camera and the amount of noise if ludicrous even after processing the images through DxO Pureraw 5.

I’ll do better next time. If you don’t fail, you don’t learn. My first Robin in the garden picture too.

What you have seen from this weekend is just a very small number of the images actually taken. By putting the camera on a tripod and letting it take a picture every second or 2, I have thousands to sort through to pick out those that contain a bird. I’ve taken over 30,000 images in the 4 days. I switched to eletronic shutter for today, partly because its quieter and that reduced the odds of disturbing a bird, but mainly because the shutter movement on my Fuji X-T5 is rated for 300,000 shots, and in the 10 months I’ve had it I’ve not taken over 67,000 images. It may last a lot longer than 300k, but when the degrade its very hard to tell as the just because less consistent especially at higher shutter speeds. Cost about £400 to £500 to have a shutter movement replaced according to the internet.

April 20^th 2025 – Nuthatch and Tits

Yesterday I captured my first Long-tailed Tit, today I have my first garden bird of the year that is not a tit. The Nuthatch.

Our second newcomer today is the Great Tit. The Blue Tits all look scruffy in comparison to the Nuthatch and Great Tits.

These were taken in the early evening so the light wasn’t so strong which mean I’m pushing the ISO to 12800 and closing down the aperture from f10 to f8, which results in more noise and a smaller depth of field. Since I don’t know where the birds will position themselves a deep focus plane is really important, but required lot of light.

I tried to capture the Blue Tits in flight, but need to zoom out a little to allow more space to capture them. I also need to try a faster shutter speed because 1/1600th of the second isn’t really enough.

April 19^th 2025 – The Tits are Out Again

Over the last couple of days I’ve only caught Blue Tits so this is the first Long-tailed Tit I’ve captured.

The same pair of Blue Tits were feeding again today (how can I tell they are the same pair – I guess), and I noticed that for some reason they sometimes feed each other. Whats that about! They both have easy access to the nuts, so why not just eat all you can!

I didn’t quite catch the tits in flight, but it was close…

I’m hoping for Squirrels, they haven’t found it yet but its only a matter of time. Lets finish for today with some landscape action.

April 18^th 2025 – Garden Bird Feeder

This weekend I’m on call, so I need to stay at home rather than get out. I’ve been planning this for a while, and ordered in a bird feeder and a 3kg bag of nuts for them. We often see squirrels in the garden, so it will be interesting to see what I manage to catch.

I put my camera on a tripod, and set it to take a photograph every 2 seconds until either the battery runs out or the SD card fills up. Each image, as a compressed RAW is 35mb in this case, although they can be up to 50mb depending on the scene. Today, I got around 4000 images before it started to rain and I the experiment.

I’ll improve the setup next time. I need to turn the bird table slightly to get the feeder further away from the table post, otherwise it gets into frame and spoils the image. This is why today’s images are framed with the feeder and bird further left than I’d like. Maybe I’ll find some other way to suspend the feeder. I’ll also get in closer so I don’t have to crop each image to such a great extent.

April 5^th 2025 – Lincoln

In the final picture, taken from right in front of Lincoln Cathedral, notice the moon just to the right of right hand tower. Interesting how the lens and perspective make it appear so small.

Some of these would have benefited from 5 seconds of thought about framing. You can see this in the 1st and 3rd images. My only excuse if that I had just walked up Steep Hill and was probably still getting my breath back. The 2nd image isn’t even properly in focus, so I was clearly having an off day :-).

I normally turn off my camera when I’m walking around, but today I didn’t bother. The back of the camera must have pressed against my body because the white balance got changed and all images had a strong magenta tint. Thankfully, I shoot in RAW, so it only affected the internal jpg and I could easily correct the RAW before exporting it to jpg. What I can’t explain is why I didn’t notice the until I got home.

March 23^rd 2025 – Frensham Little Pond

So much for starting to feel better, I coughed my way around the first third of this walk around the pond. I forgot to stop in the right place to photograph the Cormorants… deep in my own thoughts and just walked straight past.

These 3 images, if you look carefully you can see the small insect in the air, which the Black Headed Gull caught for lunch.

and another example, this time a juvenile… You can just make out the insect in front of the open beak.

another Black Headed Gull and a Heron perched nearby.

March 22^nd 2025 – Birdworld

This is my first time out with the camera for 3 weeks. I’ve had a flu/bad cold that settled on my chest which knocked me for six. Having gone through 2 asthma inhalers in quick succession, and taken 10 days off work (which I never do), I ended up on antibiotics to clear it up. Thankfully the drugs are working and I’m getting back to my normal self.

March 3^rd 2025 – Hayling Island

A walk along the coast on Hayling Island by the sailing club. I got some very nice shots a Little Egret. In the past they have flown away before I could get close enough to take a photograph, but today this bird seems quite happy for me to sit about 40 feet away and watch it feeding.

I also took my first images of Brent Geese.

You can’t visit the coast without capturing a few boats….

There are some excellent photographers taking images categorized as ‘Intentional Camera Movement’, or ICM. Here is my attempt. Handheld at 1/8th of second, f22 and ISO 125.

February 28^th 2025 – Wrecclesham

A short photo walk around the village at lunch time, mainly pictures of the church. Started with Bill’s grave; I didn’t realize it had been so long…

February 23^rd 2025 – Thursley Nature Reserve

To bring out the drama in these images I’ve used a graduated filter on the sky to reduce the exposure, bringing out out more detail in the clouds, and applied a bleach bypass film simulation. This washes out the colours somewhat but without going full monochrome and I like drama it adds. I don’t suppose I’ll be using these effects in 3 months when spring finally arrives though.

You might notice in some of the images, there are dead trees and others are scorched. This is from fire which swept through this area in May 2020.

February 22^nd 2025 – Birdworld

After a week on blood thinners my leg is feeling much better, so it was time to finish last weeks visit to Birdworld. As ever, taking photographs through a wire cage is a bit hit and miss, generally holding the lens as close as possible to the wire to throw it so out of focus it almost disappears. In some cases it takes a little further treatment in Capture One to increase clarity and de-haze to remove it further, but for the most part if you can get close to the wire, its good enough.

February 16^th 2025 – Birdworld

A cold walk around Birdworld, until my leg got so painful I had to give up and go home. Turned out I had a Deep Vein Thrombosis.

In order, a Pelican, Grey Heron (not part of the Birdworld collection, trespassing), Emu, Penguin, Red-Wing Sparrow, Bank Cormorant and some parrots. Taking any picture through the wire is frustrating. Its best done by getting as close as possible to the wire so that its so out of focus is almost disappears, but in these images I could not get close enough to the wire for this.

Below are four Penguin images (its breeding season), Sacred Ibis, African Rock Dove, Red-Wing Sparrow, Emu, Little Egrit and another Pelican.

February 15^th 2025 – Frensham Great Pond

I could not get a space in the car park at Frensham Little Pond, so made my way over to Frensham Great Pond. These days it seems to e harder than ever to get a space in the car park; Why is it so busy?

Its another dull grey day, and unfortunately I didn’t come across much wildlife, just a Crow, a single Coot next to the reeds and the weekend boaters.

February 2^nd 2025 – Frensham Little Pond

Nice and sunny today, so much better for getting out. From the shore, I thought I was photographing Grey Herons, which I’ve seen here before and took a nice image of last year. But, once home and looking properly I could not tell what they were. I posted this picture to the /Birding subreddit and its identifed as Cormorant, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in the flesh.

Another bird I captured today for the very first time. The Great Crested Grebe.

Apart from that, its the usual collection of ducks..

February 1^st 2025 – Farnham Park

An afternoon walk around Farnham Park. A very dull and cloudy winter day. I should return in spring on a sunny day to capture the colour and fresh leaves.

January 25^th 2025 – Axe Pond

A cool day, but very muddy under foot in many places. These images have been edited to lift them from the dull, plain look of reality on a January day in England. In the reality the sky I saw was white, but with a graduated mask I could reduce the exposure to bring out more detail in cloud cover. I also significantly increased colour saturation which is why it has the look of summer rather than winter.

January 19^th 2025 – Fleet Pond Nature Reserve

Another dull grey day, but the ducks don’t care! Saw a pair of Egytion Goose today, which I’ve not seen since last summer. Several Tufted Ducks, and the usual swans, Mallard and Pidgeon.

I took many of the images at 500 or even 1000th of a second to deal with the softness I often notice. This forces the ISO up, often to 12800 in such dull weather, but processing in DXO PureRaw4 recovers them pretty well. The only issue is that it takes hours to process all the images. Yesterdays photos took 6 hours to process 392 files. I could selectively go through picking out the best first but that is a bit of a painful process to I process the whole lot up front. This process depends heavily on the performance of my GPU, which isn’t really fast enough as its only an Nvidia 1660 Ti. I may have to replace it with something faster one day.

A family arrived and starting throwing bread in to feed the ducks. Immediately a couple of dozen Black Headed Gulls arrive. They have a black head in summer, hence the name, but over winter its white with a black spot behind the eye. Juveniles had some brown feathers too.

With the arrival of the gulls the Mallards have no chance and its every bird for itself…. and there can only be one winner….

January 18^th 2025 – Moat Pond

I have been here several times now, but this the first time I walked the boards…. The lone duck is a Tufted Duck, the others are all Mallard Ducks.

January 11^th 2025 – Fleet Pond Nature Reserve

January 3^rd 2025 – Moat Pond

A short frosty walk… .

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