Autumn excursions

After a bit of foraging, I made these images in a lightbox with a macro lens.

Visible migration, North London

An hour of watching from Sunny Hill Park after dawn for the last few mornings is starting to produce a trickle of birds moving south:

Sep 28th
Wood Pigeon 76 S, Meadow Pipit 8 S, Greenfinch 4 S, Redstart (1st-w m) in scrub

26th Sep
Meadow Pipit 23 S, House Martin 9 S, Greenfinch 3 S, Goldfinch 1 S

25th Sep
Yellow Wagtail 1 S, Meadow Pipit 21 S, Swallow 3 S, Greenfinch 4 S, Linnet 1 S

Old Ayrshire

Some recent images from a trip back home...

London after dark: part 2

New sounds and sonograms uploaded

I've uploaded some more sounds and sonograms from Estonia to my main site including Red-necked Grebe, White-backed Woodpecker, Wood Sandpiper, Great Bittern, Little Ringed Plover, Fieldfare, Icterine Warbler & Great Reed Warbler.
www.fssbirding.org.uk/sonagrams.htm





Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola)
Männikjärve raba, Estonia 58º 52' 33.2'' N 26º 14' 50.4'' E 22 May 2010, 0837h
Territorial song uttered during display flight over bog pools and stunted scots pines.

Painting with a camera

These photographs are almost contrary to the images most people try to obtain of birds: sharp, in focus, fairly big in the frame, good colour and lighting (and possibly more exciting subjects!). For a change I thought about disregarding most of these guidelines or ideals to create almost painterly-like images based more on imagination and less on an ideal perception of how a bird photograph should look. The images below were all made using the camera controls and hand-held techniques (with exposures as slow as 1/13) at the time of shooting. The only post-processing involved conversion to black and white and slight changes in clarity of the RAW file.

London after dark: part 1

Some long exposures from around Tower Bridge and the Tower of London on the Thames.