Autumn in slow motion

These autumn blurs were all created in camera using slow shutter speeds with various maneuvers during the exposure.

A cool morning fog

Since the weekend, fog has been forming around London. In towards the centre of the city it has not quite been 'pea soup' but it lingered long enough for me to take these images before the sky cleared to blue for capturing the Starlings below.

Starlings: Frozen in Flight

More success this weekend with capturing Starlings in flight! This time I used a Canon Speedlite 430EX II Flashgun with a diffuser.

The Art of Extinction

There's only three days left of the Ghosts of Gone Birds art exhibtion in London and if you live locally I really recommend a visit. It features around 200 works from over 120 artists, writers and musicians created to highlight the plight of threatened and near-extinct species as well as remembering those now gone forever. The exhibition is at Rochelle School, Arnold Circus, Shoreditch, London E2 7ES. Admission is free but donations and sales will go towards BirdLife International’s Preventing Extinctions programme.

www.ghostsofgonebirds.com

visions

www.fssbirding.org.uk/visions.htm

Choose an inappropriate shutter speed, for example 30 seconds.

Don't worry about holding the camera absolutely steady.

Shoot when the light is poor, for example at night.

Don't worry about the subject matter, just imagine.

East Tilbury

My dad was down visiting from Scotland last weekend and we made a trip out to East Tilbury on the Thames estuary. It was so mild that I was wearing a T-shirt! Redpoll, Skylark and Meadow Pipits were on the move, but strangely no Redwing or Fieldfare. Best birds of the day were three Arctic Skuas (two chasing the Common Gulls, another drifting upstream on the rising tide), ringtail Hen Harrier, juv Marsh Harrier, 480+ Avocets, plus hundreds of Dunlin, Grey Plover and Knot, along with smaller numbers of Black-tailed and Bar-tailed Godwits.

Leaf Fall on the Whitebox

Birds on Beer Bottles

On his travels, my dad often brings me back beer bottles with birds depicted on the label. Here are a couple from the Allendale Brewery in Northumberland: Golden Plover & Wagtail Ale.

Hovering Starlings

Trying to capture Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in flight, hovering at close range, is quite difficult with a wide angle lens, even with the tame birds in the London parks. Holding bread in one hand, camera in the other, results are usually (a) bird too far away, (b) bird too close (c) good capture but wings clipped. It would be much easier with an assistant to feed the birds, allowing more concentration on them flying into the frame. Interestingly the boldest bird had been ringed - perhaps they have less fear of the human hand now?