Search
1000 results for “wood”
-
Königin des Futterhauses.
#GeschichtenAusDemGarten #birds #birdphotography #woodpecker
-
Königin des Futterhauses.
#GeschichtenAusDemGarten #birds #birdphotography #woodpecker
-
Königin des Futterhauses.
#GeschichtenAusDemGarten #birds #birdphotography #woodpecker
-
Agility in the open sky. 🌿 This Cooper's Hawk was effortlessly patrolling the thermal currents this afternoon, showing off those classic barred tail feathers against the New Mexico blue. 🪶✨
📍 Albuquerque, New Mexico
🏷️ @canonusa
#CoopersHawk #RaptorsOfInstagram #NMBirds #Albuquerque #ShotOnCanon #WildlifeWithCanon #NaturePhotography #BirdsOfPrey -
Birds in the Bluebells
Bluebell season is in full swing right now. Anywhere I go at the moment there are swathes of bluebells, whether that’s in gardens, along the verges of the Brighton Main Line, or – yes – even along the heritage railway named after them. I love the bluebells. There is little I love more than seeing a massive carpet of them in a field or across the floor of a forest.
Kit ListCanon EOS R6 Mk IICanon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM Jump to GalleryFor Christmas my wife bought me an assortment of photography experience days. I’ve already been on one – the photos of which are waiting patiently to be posted – but for my second I discovered that a bird of prey centre near me holds photography workshops of owls amongst bluebells. The idea of beautiful owls – especially any with gloriously contrasting orange eyes – amongst a sea of bluebells was hard to resist. So last week I headed over to the UK Owl and Raptor Centre for a morning of owls and bluebells.
The setup for the day was pretty simple. There were only three of us attending the session, as well as a bird handler or two, and a professional photographer who was on hand to help out with settings and guidance. We saw four birds, each of which did a mixture of flying and posing, depending on their temperament. And, almost as if they knew me, after the session was over they sent details of the birds with their names and species, which means for once I can state confidently what these birds are. Given the nature of what we were shooting, I exclusively used my super telephoto lens. A quick note on that – throughout this post you will see my aperture changing a lot. Sometimes that was a manual choice, but most of the time it’s because this lens doesn’t have a constant aperture – it’s f/4.5 at the widest zoom, and f/7.1 and the maximum zoom.
We started with Kofi, a Verreaux’s eagle owl. With them we started out posing.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 3200, 200mmThe main piece of general advice we were given was to set our shutter speeds pretty high – in Kofi’s case, it was around 1/1600th of a second – in order to ensure that once they flew around, which they were liable to do with little warning, you’d still get a sharp image. This did lead to some reasonably high ISOs, even in daylight (although we were in the mottled light of a wooded area).
Almost on queue we got some flight.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 4000, 186mmKofi was keen to fly around, hopping between branches and fallen logs, which meant I ended up with some nice dramatic takeoff and flying shots.
1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 400mm 1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 200mm1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 254mm1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 159mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2000, 100mmEventually he sat still long enough for a shot of him on a log.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 254mm… but not for long.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 3200, 167mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 123mmOne of the challenges was the mottled light. It looked fantastic, but you had no control over when a bird would land in a patch of light or in shade – or worse, where their head was in shade but their tail was in sun.
1/1600sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmIn reality though, Kofi spent most of his time flying between various perches, showing off his impressive wingspan.
1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 5000, 135mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 3200, 135mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 109mmAs you might expect, I found it very difficult to select shots from this bird, who gave so many impressive flybys. Sometimes it was almost a relief to get shots that were out of focus and so easy to cut. There are, admittedly, even more options in the gallery at the end of this post.
Next up was Haze, a barn owl. And, if you look really closely, you might be able to spot her handler.
1/1600sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 343mmTo be honest, Haze’s flybys caused me a lot more trouble. Time after time my camera struggled to focus, and really the only decent shots of her flying captured by my camera were taken by the pro photographer as she tried to help me dial in settings and figure out why I was struggling. All sorts of settings were changed to try to get the autofocus to play balls, but to little avail. It was only later on, when we were shooting the last bird of the day, that I think I figured out what I was doing wrong: I was framing too wide, giving the autofocus doubt as to what I was trying to focus on. By being overly cautious to not mess up my framing, I ended up missing the shots entirely. I’m glad I figured it out, but it was a bit annoying it happened so late in the day.
Which is in many ways a long-winded way of saying, expect more shots of this bird posing, rather than flying.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 800, 159mmThe advice we were given when shooting Haze was a faster shutter speed of 1/2000th, because as a smaller owl she moved faster, and to underexpose by at least a full stop to ensure she didn’t blow out as her white plumage moved from shade into the light.
This next shot is one of the few ones I got of her in a proper flight.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000, 135mmThe last time I photographed a barn owl, I found a really good preset that helped bring out the brownish details in their feathers. I didn’t use it much here, because the preset emphasises brown hues whilst dialling back other colours, which robbed the bluebells and green foliage of all their beautiful colour. I did use it once or twice when she landed places where there weren’t too much colour to be lost anyway.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 320, 186mmI did manage to get a few decent shots of Haze in flight as she took off from spots, including when she took off from the spot above.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 1250, 128mmIt was still tempting to use the preset, even given it turned the lovely spring leaves into something more autumnal. Definitely one that’s more use in autumn and winter. In this next shot she’d flown off into a more distant tree, requiring me to use all of my zoom range.
1/2000sec, f/7.1, ISO 250, 500mmI did not end up with that many shots of Haze, on account of my issues focussing on her whilst she flew.
Our third bird was a southern white faced owl called Zazu.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 500mmZazu was my favourite of the birds we saw this day. She was titchy, but with light grey feathers and those glorious orange eyes. Being smaller still, the shutter speed went another notch faster, up to 1/3200th.
For a few shots I couldn’t resist using the same preset as before, sacrificing the colour of the bluebells in order to bring out those lovely eyes.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 400mmAs you can see, whenever she landed in a shady spot, my ISO crept into five figures. Luckily she often landed in less-shady locations.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2000, 428mmIt was very easy to get carried away shooting this bird. How could you not?
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 16000, 500mmA few times when she landed on the fallen tree next to her trainer, I broke out the brown preset for some deep oranges.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 363mmWhenever she flew, she looked like a dart.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 254mmZazu’s colours – various shades of grey with those eyes – matched perfectly with the bluebells and the brown of the logs she would land on.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 2500, 500mm1/4000sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400, 270mmAs you can see, I decided that 1/3200th wasn’t quite enough, so upped the shutter speed to 1/4000th.
She briefly landed on her trainer’s hand within a reasonable camera range, so I can give you an idea of her diminutive size.
1/4000sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, 400mmZazu was happy to flit between several different spots, giving us some variety in our shots.
1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 1000, 254mmSometimes, he landed in the only little bit of light in an otherwise shady spot.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmAlthough I’ve mostly tried to keep the trainers out of these shots (and to be fair, they did an excellent job of staying out of the way), I couldn’t resist this one as a trainer helped Zazu find a piece of food she was missing.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmSoon, though, it was time to say goodbye to little Zazu, who stood in one last little spot of light as her swansong.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 4000, 500mmFinally it was time for the fourth and final bird, a long eared owl called Eileen.
1/2500sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 500mmEileen also had a decent knack of flying about and landing in patches of light.
1/2500sec, f/6.3, ISO 4000, 324mmOccasionally, quite close.
1/2500sec, f/8, ISO 3200, 363mmIt was only when we got to Eileen that I finally got the hang of shooting the owls in flight. As I said earlier, it just required the courage to frame closer to the bird so that the autofocus knew what I was actually trying to photograph.
1/2500sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmAlthough I was obviously mostly after shots of Eileen flying low over the bluebells, giving a nice colourful backdrop, sometimes the shots with the large trees in the background worked just as nicely.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 10000, 500mmEileen had no trouble flying. In many ways it was harder to keep her still, she had bags of energy and so was happy to constantly fly up and down the bluebell-strewn area of the wood for us to fill our memory cards. Which obviously gave me the problem in the edit of selecting which shots to keep and which to bin (not that I bin many shots unless they’re a technical write-off – that is, motion blurred, out of focus, or framed so I completely miss the subject).
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 428mmWhich is to say, here’s a lot of flying photos of an owl.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmOn at least one pass she let out a hoot and I captured her with her mouth open.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 167mmThe light on Eileen was often uneven – she was probably in the shade in many of the shots above – but sometimes she caught the light.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 363mmOccasionally I was able to get away with slightly wider framing to get more bluebells in the shot.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 238mmAfter a while, Eileen was more open to the idea of sitting still for brief moments.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500, 451mm1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmWhich also led to some dramatic takeoff shots.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmAlthough most of my shots of Eileen in flight are her with spread wings, because that generally looks better, there is also something quite impressive about seeing her wings in a downward position.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500, 400mmWe closed the day with Eileen sitting at the base of a tree, poking her head around. She was, to be fair, a little bemused by the assignment, but eventually we got something workable.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, 451mm1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 2500, 343mmWe got one last post in a spot of light and one last flyby, and then it was time to go home.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 2000, 472mm1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 3200, 128mmThis experience suitably scratched my itch for bluebells and wildlife. It is a little frustrating that it took me a little while to warm into it but I do feel out of the photography ‘zone’ at the moment for reasons I can’t quite fathom. It did also feel nice to photograph something other than trains, because although I love doing that, I’ve not been flexing my other photography muscles much recently.
That said, I am pretty pleased with myself that I’ve been able to take the 1,100 photos I took on this day, edit them, select the best (albeit perhaps with not as much selectiveness as I should have) and post them in the space of only a week.
May is going to start out as a bit of a blue month, because my next post will also feature some sizeable patches of bluebells.
As ever, although moreso in this post than most, there are a lot more shots in the gallery below.
#birds #birdsOfPrey #bluebells #nature #Photography #sussex #travel #wildlife -
Birds in the Bluebells
Bluebell season is in full swing right now. Anywhere I go at the moment there are swathes of bluebells, whether that’s in gardens, along the verges of the Brighton Main Line, or – yes – even along the heritage railway named after them. I love the bluebells. There is little I love more than seeing a massive carpet of them in a field or across the floor of a forest.
Kit ListCanon EOS R6 Mk IICanon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM Jump to GalleryFor Christmas my wife bought me an assortment of photography experience days. I’ve already been on one – the photos of which are waiting patiently to be posted – but for my second I discovered that a bird of prey centre near me holds photography workshops of owls amongst bluebells. The idea of beautiful owls – especially any with gloriously contrasting orange eyes – amongst a sea of bluebells was hard to resist. So last week I headed over to the UK Owl and Raptor Centre for a morning of owls and bluebells.
The setup for the day was pretty simple. There were only three of us attending the session, as well as a bird handler or two, and a professional photographer who was on hand to help out with settings and guidance. We saw four birds, each of which did a mixture of flying and posing, depending on their temperament. And, almost as if they knew me, after the session was over they sent details of the birds with their names and species, which means for once I can state confidently what these birds are. Given the nature of what we were shooting, I exclusively used my super telephoto lens. A quick note on that – throughout this post you will see my aperture changing a lot. Sometimes that was a manual choice, but most of the time it’s because this lens doesn’t have a constant aperture – it’s f/4.5 at the widest zoom, and f/7.1 and the maximum zoom.
We started with Kofi, a Verreaux’s eagle owl. With them we started out posing.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 3200, 200mmThe main piece of general advice we were given was to set our shutter speeds pretty high – in Kofi’s case, it was around 1/1600th of a second – in order to ensure that once they flew around, which they were liable to do with little warning, you’d still get a sharp image. This did lead to some reasonably high ISOs, even in daylight (although we were in the mottled light of a wooded area).
Almost on queue we got some flight.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 4000, 186mmKofi was keen to fly around, hopping between branches and fallen logs, which meant I ended up with some nice dramatic takeoff and flying shots.
1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 400mm 1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 200mm1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 254mm1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 159mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2000, 100mmEventually he sat still long enough for a shot of him on a log.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 254mm… but not for long.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 3200, 167mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 123mmOne of the challenges was the mottled light. It looked fantastic, but you had no control over when a bird would land in a patch of light or in shade – or worse, where their head was in shade but their tail was in sun.
1/1600sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmIn reality though, Kofi spent most of his time flying between various perches, showing off his impressive wingspan.
1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 5000, 135mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 3200, 135mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 109mmAs you might expect, I found it very difficult to select shots from this bird, who gave so many impressive flybys. Sometimes it was almost a relief to get shots that were out of focus and so easy to cut. There are, admittedly, even more options in the gallery at the end of this post.
Next up was Haze, a barn owl. And, if you look really closely, you might be able to spot her handler.
1/1600sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 343mmTo be honest, Haze’s flybys caused me a lot more trouble. Time after time my camera struggled to focus, and really the only decent shots of her flying captured by my camera were taken by the pro photographer as she tried to help me dial in settings and figure out why I was struggling. All sorts of settings were changed to try to get the autofocus to play balls, but to little avail. It was only later on, when we were shooting the last bird of the day, that I think I figured out what I was doing wrong: I was framing too wide, giving the autofocus doubt as to what I was trying to focus on. By being overly cautious to not mess up my framing, I ended up missing the shots entirely. I’m glad I figured it out, but it was a bit annoying it happened so late in the day.
Which is in many ways a long-winded way of saying, expect more shots of this bird posing, rather than flying.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 800, 159mmThe advice we were given when shooting Haze was a faster shutter speed of 1/2000th, because as a smaller owl she moved faster, and to underexpose by at least a full stop to ensure she didn’t blow out as her white plumage moved from shade into the light.
This next shot is one of the few ones I got of her in a proper flight.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000, 135mmThe last time I photographed a barn owl, I found a really good preset that helped bring out the brownish details in their feathers. I didn’t use it much here, because the preset emphasises brown hues whilst dialling back other colours, which robbed the bluebells and green foliage of all their beautiful colour. I did use it once or twice when she landed places where there weren’t too much colour to be lost anyway.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 320, 186mmI did manage to get a few decent shots of Haze in flight as she took off from spots, including when she took off from the spot above.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 1250, 128mmIt was still tempting to use the preset, even given it turned the lovely spring leaves into something more autumnal. Definitely one that’s more use in autumn and winter. In this next shot she’d flown off into a more distant tree, requiring me to use all of my zoom range.
1/2000sec, f/7.1, ISO 250, 500mmI did not end up with that many shots of Haze, on account of my issues focussing on her whilst she flew.
Our third bird was a southern white faced owl called Zazu.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 500mmZazu was my favourite of the birds we saw this day. She was titchy, but with light grey feathers and those glorious orange eyes. Being smaller still, the shutter speed went another notch faster, up to 1/3200th.
For a few shots I couldn’t resist using the same preset as before, sacrificing the colour of the bluebells in order to bring out those lovely eyes.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 400mmAs you can see, whenever she landed in a shady spot, my ISO crept into five figures. Luckily she often landed in less-shady locations.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2000, 428mmIt was very easy to get carried away shooting this bird. How could you not?
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 16000, 500mmA few times when she landed on the fallen tree next to her trainer, I broke out the brown preset for some deep oranges.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 363mmWhenever she flew, she looked like a dart.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 254mmZazu’s colours – various shades of grey with those eyes – matched perfectly with the bluebells and the brown of the logs she would land on.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 2500, 500mm1/4000sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400, 270mmAs you can see, I decided that 1/3200th wasn’t quite enough, so upped the shutter speed to 1/4000th.
She briefly landed on her trainer’s hand within a reasonable camera range, so I can give you an idea of her diminutive size.
1/4000sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, 400mmZazu was happy to flit between several different spots, giving us some variety in our shots.
1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 1000, 254mmSometimes, he landed in the only little bit of light in an otherwise shady spot.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmAlthough I’ve mostly tried to keep the trainers out of these shots (and to be fair, they did an excellent job of staying out of the way), I couldn’t resist this one as a trainer helped Zazu find a piece of food she was missing.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmSoon, though, it was time to say goodbye to little Zazu, who stood in one last little spot of light as her swansong.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 4000, 500mmFinally it was time for the fourth and final bird, a long eared owl called Eileen.
1/2500sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 500mmEileen also had a decent knack of flying about and landing in patches of light.
1/2500sec, f/6.3, ISO 4000, 324mmOccasionally, quite close.
1/2500sec, f/8, ISO 3200, 363mmIt was only when we got to Eileen that I finally got the hang of shooting the owls in flight. As I said earlier, it just required the courage to frame closer to the bird so that the autofocus knew what I was actually trying to photograph.
1/2500sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmAlthough I was obviously mostly after shots of Eileen flying low over the bluebells, giving a nice colourful backdrop, sometimes the shots with the large trees in the background worked just as nicely.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 10000, 500mmEileen had no trouble flying. In many ways it was harder to keep her still, she had bags of energy and so was happy to constantly fly up and down the bluebell-strewn area of the wood for us to fill our memory cards. Which obviously gave me the problem in the edit of selecting which shots to keep and which to bin (not that I bin many shots unless they’re a technical write-off – that is, motion blurred, out of focus, or framed so I completely miss the subject).
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 428mmWhich is to say, here’s a lot of flying photos of an owl.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmOn at least one pass she let out a hoot and I captured her with her mouth open.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 167mmThe light on Eileen was often uneven – she was probably in the shade in many of the shots above – but sometimes she caught the light.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 363mmOccasionally I was able to get away with slightly wider framing to get more bluebells in the shot.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 238mmAfter a while, Eileen was more open to the idea of sitting still for brief moments.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500, 451mm1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmWhich also led to some dramatic takeoff shots.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmAlthough most of my shots of Eileen in flight are her with spread wings, because that generally looks better, there is also something quite impressive about seeing her wings in a downward position.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500, 400mmWe closed the day with Eileen sitting at the base of a tree, poking her head around. She was, to be fair, a little bemused by the assignment, but eventually we got something workable.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, 451mm1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 2500, 343mmWe got one last post in a spot of light and one last flyby, and then it was time to go home.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 2000, 472mm1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 3200, 128mmThis experience suitably scratched my itch for bluebells and wildlife. It is a little frustrating that it took me a little while to warm into it but I do feel out of the photography ‘zone’ at the moment for reasons I can’t quite fathom. It did also feel nice to photograph something other than trains, because although I love doing that, I’ve not been flexing my other photography muscles much recently.
That said, I am pretty pleased with myself that I’ve been able to take the 1,100 photos I took on this day, edit them, select the best (albeit perhaps with not as much selectiveness as I should have) and post them in the space of only a week.
May is going to start out as a bit of a blue month, because my next post will also feature some sizeable patches of bluebells.
As ever, although moreso in this post than most, there are a lot more shots in the gallery below.
#birds #birdsOfPrey #bluebells #nature #Photography #sussex #travel #wildlife -
Birds in the Bluebells
Bluebell season is in full swing right now. Anywhere I go at the moment there are swathes of bluebells, whether that’s in gardens, along the verges of the Brighton Main Line, or – yes – even along the heritage railway named after them. I love the bluebells. There is little I love more than seeing a massive carpet of them in a field or across the floor of a forest.
Kit ListCanon EOS R6 Mk IICanon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM Jump to GalleryFor Christmas my wife bought me an assortment of photography experience days. I’ve already been on one – the photos of which are waiting patiently to be posted – but for my second I discovered that a bird of prey centre near me holds photography workshops of owls amongst bluebells. The idea of beautiful owls – especially any with gloriously contrasting orange eyes – amongst a sea of bluebells was hard to resist. So last week I headed over to the UK Owl and Raptor Centre for a morning of owls and bluebells.
The setup for the day was pretty simple. There were only three of us attending the session, as well as a bird handler or two, and a professional photographer who was on hand to help out with settings and guidance. We saw four birds, each of which did a mixture of flying and posing, depending on their temperament. And, almost as if they knew me, after the session was over they sent details of the birds with their names and species, which means for once I can state confidently what these birds are. Given the nature of what we were shooting, I exclusively used my super telephoto lens. A quick note on that – throughout this post you will see my aperture changing a lot. Sometimes that was a manual choice, but most of the time it’s because this lens doesn’t have a constant aperture – it’s f/4.5 at the widest zoom, and f/7.1 and the maximum zoom.
We started with Kofi, a Verreaux’s eagle owl. With them we started out posing.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 3200, 200mmThe main piece of general advice we were given was to set our shutter speeds pretty high – in Kofi’s case, it was around 1/1600th of a second – in order to ensure that once they flew around, which they were liable to do with little warning, you’d still get a sharp image. This did lead to some reasonably high ISOs, even in daylight (although we were in the mottled light of a wooded area).
Almost on queue we got some flight.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 4000, 186mmKofi was keen to fly around, hopping between branches and fallen logs, which meant I ended up with some nice dramatic takeoff and flying shots.
1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 400mm 1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 200mm1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 254mm1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 159mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2000, 100mmEventually he sat still long enough for a shot of him on a log.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 254mm… but not for long.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 3200, 167mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 123mmOne of the challenges was the mottled light. It looked fantastic, but you had no control over when a bird would land in a patch of light or in shade – or worse, where their head was in shade but their tail was in sun.
1/1600sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmIn reality though, Kofi spent most of his time flying between various perches, showing off his impressive wingspan.
1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 5000, 135mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 3200, 135mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 109mmAs you might expect, I found it very difficult to select shots from this bird, who gave so many impressive flybys. Sometimes it was almost a relief to get shots that were out of focus and so easy to cut. There are, admittedly, even more options in the gallery at the end of this post.
Next up was Haze, a barn owl. And, if you look really closely, you might be able to spot her handler.
1/1600sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 343mmTo be honest, Haze’s flybys caused me a lot more trouble. Time after time my camera struggled to focus, and really the only decent shots of her flying captured by my camera were taken by the pro photographer as she tried to help me dial in settings and figure out why I was struggling. All sorts of settings were changed to try to get the autofocus to play balls, but to little avail. It was only later on, when we were shooting the last bird of the day, that I think I figured out what I was doing wrong: I was framing too wide, giving the autofocus doubt as to what I was trying to focus on. By being overly cautious to not mess up my framing, I ended up missing the shots entirely. I’m glad I figured it out, but it was a bit annoying it happened so late in the day.
Which is in many ways a long-winded way of saying, expect more shots of this bird posing, rather than flying.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 800, 159mmThe advice we were given when shooting Haze was a faster shutter speed of 1/2000th, because as a smaller owl she moved faster, and to underexpose by at least a full stop to ensure she didn’t blow out as her white plumage moved from shade into the light.
This next shot is one of the few ones I got of her in a proper flight.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000, 135mmThe last time I photographed a barn owl, I found a really good preset that helped bring out the brownish details in their feathers. I didn’t use it much here, because the preset emphasises brown hues whilst dialling back other colours, which robbed the bluebells and green foliage of all their beautiful colour. I did use it once or twice when she landed places where there weren’t too much colour to be lost anyway.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 320, 186mmI did manage to get a few decent shots of Haze in flight as she took off from spots, including when she took off from the spot above.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 1250, 128mmIt was still tempting to use the preset, even given it turned the lovely spring leaves into something more autumnal. Definitely one that’s more use in autumn and winter. In this next shot she’d flown off into a more distant tree, requiring me to use all of my zoom range.
1/2000sec, f/7.1, ISO 250, 500mmI did not end up with that many shots of Haze, on account of my issues focussing on her whilst she flew.
Our third bird was a southern white faced owl called Zazu.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 500mmZazu was my favourite of the birds we saw this day. She was titchy, but with light grey feathers and those glorious orange eyes. Being smaller still, the shutter speed went another notch faster, up to 1/3200th.
For a few shots I couldn’t resist using the same preset as before, sacrificing the colour of the bluebells in order to bring out those lovely eyes.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 400mmAs you can see, whenever she landed in a shady spot, my ISO crept into five figures. Luckily she often landed in less-shady locations.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2000, 428mmIt was very easy to get carried away shooting this bird. How could you not?
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 16000, 500mmA few times when she landed on the fallen tree next to her trainer, I broke out the brown preset for some deep oranges.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 363mmWhenever she flew, she looked like a dart.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 254mmZazu’s colours – various shades of grey with those eyes – matched perfectly with the bluebells and the brown of the logs she would land on.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 2500, 500mm1/4000sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400, 270mmAs you can see, I decided that 1/3200th wasn’t quite enough, so upped the shutter speed to 1/4000th.
She briefly landed on her trainer’s hand within a reasonable camera range, so I can give you an idea of her diminutive size.
1/4000sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, 400mmZazu was happy to flit between several different spots, giving us some variety in our shots.
1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 1000, 254mmSometimes, he landed in the only little bit of light in an otherwise shady spot.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmAlthough I’ve mostly tried to keep the trainers out of these shots (and to be fair, they did an excellent job of staying out of the way), I couldn’t resist this one as a trainer helped Zazu find a piece of food she was missing.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmSoon, though, it was time to say goodbye to little Zazu, who stood in one last little spot of light as her swansong.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 4000, 500mmFinally it was time for the fourth and final bird, a long eared owl called Eileen.
1/2500sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 500mmEileen also had a decent knack of flying about and landing in patches of light.
1/2500sec, f/6.3, ISO 4000, 324mmOccasionally, quite close.
1/2500sec, f/8, ISO 3200, 363mmIt was only when we got to Eileen that I finally got the hang of shooting the owls in flight. As I said earlier, it just required the courage to frame closer to the bird so that the autofocus knew what I was actually trying to photograph.
1/2500sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmAlthough I was obviously mostly after shots of Eileen flying low over the bluebells, giving a nice colourful backdrop, sometimes the shots with the large trees in the background worked just as nicely.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 10000, 500mmEileen had no trouble flying. In many ways it was harder to keep her still, she had bags of energy and so was happy to constantly fly up and down the bluebell-strewn area of the wood for us to fill our memory cards. Which obviously gave me the problem in the edit of selecting which shots to keep and which to bin (not that I bin many shots unless they’re a technical write-off – that is, motion blurred, out of focus, or framed so I completely miss the subject).
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 428mmWhich is to say, here’s a lot of flying photos of an owl.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmOn at least one pass she let out a hoot and I captured her with her mouth open.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 167mmThe light on Eileen was often uneven – she was probably in the shade in many of the shots above – but sometimes she caught the light.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 363mmOccasionally I was able to get away with slightly wider framing to get more bluebells in the shot.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 238mmAfter a while, Eileen was more open to the idea of sitting still for brief moments.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500, 451mm1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmWhich also led to some dramatic takeoff shots.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmAlthough most of my shots of Eileen in flight are her with spread wings, because that generally looks better, there is also something quite impressive about seeing her wings in a downward position.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500, 400mmWe closed the day with Eileen sitting at the base of a tree, poking her head around. She was, to be fair, a little bemused by the assignment, but eventually we got something workable.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, 451mm1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 2500, 343mmWe got one last post in a spot of light and one last flyby, and then it was time to go home.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 2000, 472mm1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 3200, 128mmThis experience suitably scratched my itch for bluebells and wildlife. It is a little frustrating that it took me a little while to warm into it but I do feel out of the photography ‘zone’ at the moment for reasons I can’t quite fathom. It did also feel nice to photograph something other than trains, because although I love doing that, I’ve not been flexing my other photography muscles much recently.
That said, I am pretty pleased with myself that I’ve been able to take the 1,100 photos I took on this day, edit them, select the best (albeit perhaps with not as much selectiveness as I should have) and post them in the space of only a week.
May is going to start out as a bit of a blue month, because my next post will also feature some sizeable patches of bluebells.
As ever, although moreso in this post than most, there are a lot more shots in the gallery below.
#birds #birdsOfPrey #bluebells #nature #Photography #sussex #travel #wildlife -
Birds in the Bluebells
Bluebell season is in full swing right now. Anywhere I go at the moment there are swathes of bluebells, whether that’s in gardens, along the verges of the Brighton Main Line, or – yes – even along the heritage railway named after them. I love the bluebells. There is little I love more than seeing a massive carpet of them in a field or across the floor of a forest.
Kit ListCanon EOS R6 Mk IICanon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM Jump to GalleryFor Christmas my wife bought me an assortment of photography experience days. I’ve already been on one – the photos of which are waiting patiently to be posted – but for my second I discovered that a bird of prey centre near me holds photography workshops of owls amongst bluebells. The idea of beautiful owls – especially any with gloriously contrasting orange eyes – amongst a sea of bluebells was hard to resist. So last week I headed over to the UK Owl and Raptor Centre for a morning of owls and bluebells.
The setup for the day was pretty simple. There were only three of us attending the session, as well as a bird handler or two, and a professional photographer who was on hand to help out with settings and guidance. We saw four birds, each of which did a mixture of flying and posing, depending on their temperament. And, almost as if they knew me, after the session was over they sent details of the birds with their names and species, which means for once I can state confidently what these birds are. Given the nature of what we were shooting, I exclusively used my super telephoto lens. A quick note on that – throughout this post you will see my aperture changing a lot. Sometimes that was a manual choice, but most of the time it’s because this lens doesn’t have a constant aperture – it’s f/4.5 at the widest zoom, and f/7.1 and the maximum zoom.
We started with Kofi, a Verreaux’s eagle owl. With them we started out posing.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 3200, 200mmThe main piece of general advice we were given was to set our shutter speeds pretty high – in Kofi’s case, it was around 1/1600th of a second – in order to ensure that once they flew around, which they were liable to do with little warning, you’d still get a sharp image. This did lead to some reasonably high ISOs, even in daylight (although we were in the mottled light of a wooded area).
Almost on queue we got some flight.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 4000, 186mmKofi was keen to fly around, hopping between branches and fallen logs, which meant I ended up with some nice dramatic takeoff and flying shots.
1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 400mm 1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 200mm1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 254mm1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 159mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2000, 100mmEventually he sat still long enough for a shot of him on a log.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 254mm… but not for long.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 3200, 167mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 123mmOne of the challenges was the mottled light. It looked fantastic, but you had no control over when a bird would land in a patch of light or in shade – or worse, where their head was in shade but their tail was in sun.
1/1600sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmIn reality though, Kofi spent most of his time flying between various perches, showing off his impressive wingspan.
1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 5000, 135mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 3200, 135mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 109mmAs you might expect, I found it very difficult to select shots from this bird, who gave so many impressive flybys. Sometimes it was almost a relief to get shots that were out of focus and so easy to cut. There are, admittedly, even more options in the gallery at the end of this post.
Next up was Haze, a barn owl. And, if you look really closely, you might be able to spot her handler.
1/1600sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 343mmTo be honest, Haze’s flybys caused me a lot more trouble. Time after time my camera struggled to focus, and really the only decent shots of her flying captured by my camera were taken by the pro photographer as she tried to help me dial in settings and figure out why I was struggling. All sorts of settings were changed to try to get the autofocus to play balls, but to little avail. It was only later on, when we were shooting the last bird of the day, that I think I figured out what I was doing wrong: I was framing too wide, giving the autofocus doubt as to what I was trying to focus on. By being overly cautious to not mess up my framing, I ended up missing the shots entirely. I’m glad I figured it out, but it was a bit annoying it happened so late in the day.
Which is in many ways a long-winded way of saying, expect more shots of this bird posing, rather than flying.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 800, 159mmThe advice we were given when shooting Haze was a faster shutter speed of 1/2000th, because as a smaller owl she moved faster, and to underexpose by at least a full stop to ensure she didn’t blow out as her white plumage moved from shade into the light.
This next shot is one of the few ones I got of her in a proper flight.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000, 135mmThe last time I photographed a barn owl, I found a really good preset that helped bring out the brownish details in their feathers. I didn’t use it much here, because the preset emphasises brown hues whilst dialling back other colours, which robbed the bluebells and green foliage of all their beautiful colour. I did use it once or twice when she landed places where there weren’t too much colour to be lost anyway.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 320, 186mmI did manage to get a few decent shots of Haze in flight as she took off from spots, including when she took off from the spot above.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 1250, 128mmIt was still tempting to use the preset, even given it turned the lovely spring leaves into something more autumnal. Definitely one that’s more use in autumn and winter. In this next shot she’d flown off into a more distant tree, requiring me to use all of my zoom range.
1/2000sec, f/7.1, ISO 250, 500mmI did not end up with that many shots of Haze, on account of my issues focussing on her whilst she flew.
Our third bird was a southern white faced owl called Zazu.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 500mmZazu was my favourite of the birds we saw this day. She was titchy, but with light grey feathers and those glorious orange eyes. Being smaller still, the shutter speed went another notch faster, up to 1/3200th.
For a few shots I couldn’t resist using the same preset as before, sacrificing the colour of the bluebells in order to bring out those lovely eyes.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 400mmAs you can see, whenever she landed in a shady spot, my ISO crept into five figures. Luckily she often landed in less-shady locations.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2000, 428mmIt was very easy to get carried away shooting this bird. How could you not?
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 16000, 500mmA few times when she landed on the fallen tree next to her trainer, I broke out the brown preset for some deep oranges.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 363mmWhenever she flew, she looked like a dart.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 254mmZazu’s colours – various shades of grey with those eyes – matched perfectly with the bluebells and the brown of the logs she would land on.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 2500, 500mm1/4000sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400, 270mmAs you can see, I decided that 1/3200th wasn’t quite enough, so upped the shutter speed to 1/4000th.
She briefly landed on her trainer’s hand within a reasonable camera range, so I can give you an idea of her diminutive size.
1/4000sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, 400mmZazu was happy to flit between several different spots, giving us some variety in our shots.
1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 1000, 254mmSometimes, he landed in the only little bit of light in an otherwise shady spot.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmAlthough I’ve mostly tried to keep the trainers out of these shots (and to be fair, they did an excellent job of staying out of the way), I couldn’t resist this one as a trainer helped Zazu find a piece of food she was missing.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmSoon, though, it was time to say goodbye to little Zazu, who stood in one last little spot of light as her swansong.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 4000, 500mmFinally it was time for the fourth and final bird, a long eared owl called Eileen.
1/2500sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 500mmEileen also had a decent knack of flying about and landing in patches of light.
1/2500sec, f/6.3, ISO 4000, 324mmOccasionally, quite close.
1/2500sec, f/8, ISO 3200, 363mmIt was only when we got to Eileen that I finally got the hang of shooting the owls in flight. As I said earlier, it just required the courage to frame closer to the bird so that the autofocus knew what I was actually trying to photograph.
1/2500sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmAlthough I was obviously mostly after shots of Eileen flying low over the bluebells, giving a nice colourful backdrop, sometimes the shots with the large trees in the background worked just as nicely.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 10000, 500mmEileen had no trouble flying. In many ways it was harder to keep her still, she had bags of energy and so was happy to constantly fly up and down the bluebell-strewn area of the wood for us to fill our memory cards. Which obviously gave me the problem in the edit of selecting which shots to keep and which to bin (not that I bin many shots unless they’re a technical write-off – that is, motion blurred, out of focus, or framed so I completely miss the subject).
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 428mmWhich is to say, here’s a lot of flying photos of an owl.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmOn at least one pass she let out a hoot and I captured her with her mouth open.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 167mmThe light on Eileen was often uneven – she was probably in the shade in many of the shots above – but sometimes she caught the light.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 363mmOccasionally I was able to get away with slightly wider framing to get more bluebells in the shot.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 238mmAfter a while, Eileen was more open to the idea of sitting still for brief moments.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500, 451mm1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmWhich also led to some dramatic takeoff shots.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmAlthough most of my shots of Eileen in flight are her with spread wings, because that generally looks better, there is also something quite impressive about seeing her wings in a downward position.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500, 400mmWe closed the day with Eileen sitting at the base of a tree, poking her head around. She was, to be fair, a little bemused by the assignment, but eventually we got something workable.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, 451mm1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 2500, 343mmWe got one last post in a spot of light and one last flyby, and then it was time to go home.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 2000, 472mm1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 3200, 128mmThis experience suitably scratched my itch for bluebells and wildlife. It is a little frustrating that it took me a little while to warm into it but I do feel out of the photography ‘zone’ at the moment for reasons I can’t quite fathom. It did also feel nice to photograph something other than trains, because although I love doing that, I’ve not been flexing my other photography muscles much recently.
That said, I am pretty pleased with myself that I’ve been able to take the 1,100 photos I took on this day, edit them, select the best (albeit perhaps with not as much selectiveness as I should have) and post them in the space of only a week.
May is going to start out as a bit of a blue month, because my next post will also feature some sizeable patches of bluebells.
As ever, although moreso in this post than most, there are a lot more shots in the gallery below.
#birds #birdsOfPrey #bluebells #nature #Photography #sussex #travel #wildlife -
Birds in the Bluebells
Bluebell season is in full swing right now. Anywhere I go at the moment there are swathes of bluebells, whether that’s in gardens, along the verges of the Brighton Main Line, or – yes – even along the heritage railway named after them. I love the bluebells. There is little I love more than seeing a massive carpet of them in a field or across the floor of a forest.
Kit ListCanon EOS R6 Mk IICanon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM Jump to GalleryFor Christmas my wife bought me an assortment of photography experience days. I’ve already been on one – the photos of which are waiting patiently to be posted – but for my second I discovered that a bird of prey centre near me holds photography workshops of owls amongst bluebells. The idea of beautiful owls – especially any with gloriously contrasting orange eyes – amongst a sea of bluebells was hard to resist. So last week I headed over to the UK Owl and Raptor Centre for a morning of owls and bluebells.
The setup for the day was pretty simple. There were only three of us attending the session, as well as a bird handler or two, and a professional photographer who was on hand to help out with settings and guidance. We saw four birds, each of which did a mixture of flying and posing, depending on their temperament. And, almost as if they knew me, after the session was over they sent details of the birds with their names and species, which means for once I can state confidently what these birds are. Given the nature of what we were shooting, I exclusively used my super telephoto lens. A quick note on that – throughout this post you will see my aperture changing a lot. Sometimes that was a manual choice, but most of the time it’s because this lens doesn’t have a constant aperture – it’s f/4.5 at the widest zoom, and f/7.1 and the maximum zoom.
We started with Kofi, a Verreaux’s eagle owl. With them we started out posing.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 3200, 200mmThe main piece of general advice we were given was to set our shutter speeds pretty high – in Kofi’s case, it was around 1/1600th of a second – in order to ensure that once they flew around, which they were liable to do with little warning, you’d still get a sharp image. This did lead to some reasonably high ISOs, even in daylight (although we were in the mottled light of a wooded area).
Almost on queue we got some flight.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 4000, 186mmKofi was keen to fly around, hopping between branches and fallen logs, which meant I ended up with some nice dramatic takeoff and flying shots.
1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 400mm 1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 200mm1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 254mm1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 159mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2000, 100mmEventually he sat still long enough for a shot of him on a log.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 2500, 254mm… but not for long.
1/1600sec, f/5, ISO 3200, 167mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 123mmOne of the challenges was the mottled light. It looked fantastic, but you had no control over when a bird would land in a patch of light or in shade – or worse, where their head was in shade but their tail was in sun.
1/1600sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmIn reality though, Kofi spent most of his time flying between various perches, showing off his impressive wingspan.
1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 5000, 135mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 3200, 135mm1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 109mmAs you might expect, I found it very difficult to select shots from this bird, who gave so many impressive flybys. Sometimes it was almost a relief to get shots that were out of focus and so easy to cut. There are, admittedly, even more options in the gallery at the end of this post.
Next up was Haze, a barn owl. And, if you look really closely, you might be able to spot her handler.
1/1600sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 343mmTo be honest, Haze’s flybys caused me a lot more trouble. Time after time my camera struggled to focus, and really the only decent shots of her flying captured by my camera were taken by the pro photographer as she tried to help me dial in settings and figure out why I was struggling. All sorts of settings were changed to try to get the autofocus to play balls, but to little avail. It was only later on, when we were shooting the last bird of the day, that I think I figured out what I was doing wrong: I was framing too wide, giving the autofocus doubt as to what I was trying to focus on. By being overly cautious to not mess up my framing, I ended up missing the shots entirely. I’m glad I figured it out, but it was a bit annoying it happened so late in the day.
Which is in many ways a long-winded way of saying, expect more shots of this bird posing, rather than flying.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 800, 159mmThe advice we were given when shooting Haze was a faster shutter speed of 1/2000th, because as a smaller owl she moved faster, and to underexpose by at least a full stop to ensure she didn’t blow out as her white plumage moved from shade into the light.
This next shot is one of the few ones I got of her in a proper flight.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000, 135mmThe last time I photographed a barn owl, I found a really good preset that helped bring out the brownish details in their feathers. I didn’t use it much here, because the preset emphasises brown hues whilst dialling back other colours, which robbed the bluebells and green foliage of all their beautiful colour. I did use it once or twice when she landed places where there weren’t too much colour to be lost anyway.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 320, 186mmI did manage to get a few decent shots of Haze in flight as she took off from spots, including when she took off from the spot above.
1/2000sec, f/5.6, ISO 1250, 128mmIt was still tempting to use the preset, even given it turned the lovely spring leaves into something more autumnal. Definitely one that’s more use in autumn and winter. In this next shot she’d flown off into a more distant tree, requiring me to use all of my zoom range.
1/2000sec, f/7.1, ISO 250, 500mmI did not end up with that many shots of Haze, on account of my issues focussing on her whilst she flew.
Our third bird was a southern white faced owl called Zazu.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 500mmZazu was my favourite of the birds we saw this day. She was titchy, but with light grey feathers and those glorious orange eyes. Being smaller still, the shutter speed went another notch faster, up to 1/3200th.
For a few shots I couldn’t resist using the same preset as before, sacrificing the colour of the bluebells in order to bring out those lovely eyes.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 400mmAs you can see, whenever she landed in a shady spot, my ISO crept into five figures. Luckily she often landed in less-shady locations.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2000, 428mmIt was very easy to get carried away shooting this bird. How could you not?
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 16000, 500mmA few times when she landed on the fallen tree next to her trainer, I broke out the brown preset for some deep oranges.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 363mmWhenever she flew, she looked like a dart.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 254mmZazu’s colours – various shades of grey with those eyes – matched perfectly with the bluebells and the brown of the logs she would land on.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 2500, 500mm1/4000sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400, 270mmAs you can see, I decided that 1/3200th wasn’t quite enough, so upped the shutter speed to 1/4000th.
She briefly landed on her trainer’s hand within a reasonable camera range, so I can give you an idea of her diminutive size.
1/4000sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, 400mmZazu was happy to flit between several different spots, giving us some variety in our shots.
1/1600sec, f/6.3, ISO 1000, 254mmSometimes, he landed in the only little bit of light in an otherwise shady spot.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmAlthough I’ve mostly tried to keep the trainers out of these shots (and to be fair, they did an excellent job of staying out of the way), I couldn’t resist this one as a trainer helped Zazu find a piece of food she was missing.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmSoon, though, it was time to say goodbye to little Zazu, who stood in one last little spot of light as her swansong.
1/4000sec, f/7.1, ISO 4000, 500mmFinally it was time for the fourth and final bird, a long eared owl called Eileen.
1/2500sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 500mmEileen also had a decent knack of flying about and landing in patches of light.
1/2500sec, f/6.3, ISO 4000, 324mmOccasionally, quite close.
1/2500sec, f/8, ISO 3200, 363mmIt was only when we got to Eileen that I finally got the hang of shooting the owls in flight. As I said earlier, it just required the courage to frame closer to the bird so that the autofocus knew what I was actually trying to photograph.
1/2500sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmAlthough I was obviously mostly after shots of Eileen flying low over the bluebells, giving a nice colourful backdrop, sometimes the shots with the large trees in the background worked just as nicely.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 10000, 500mmEileen had no trouble flying. In many ways it was harder to keep her still, she had bags of energy and so was happy to constantly fly up and down the bluebell-strewn area of the wood for us to fill our memory cards. Which obviously gave me the problem in the edit of selecting which shots to keep and which to bin (not that I bin many shots unless they’re a technical write-off – that is, motion blurred, out of focus, or framed so I completely miss the subject).
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 8000, 428mmWhich is to say, here’s a lot of flying photos of an owl.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 300mmOn at least one pass she let out a hoot and I captured her with her mouth open.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 167mmThe light on Eileen was often uneven – she was probably in the shade in many of the shots above – but sometimes she caught the light.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, 363mmOccasionally I was able to get away with slightly wider framing to get more bluebells in the shot.
1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000, 238mmAfter a while, Eileen was more open to the idea of sitting still for brief moments.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500, 451mm1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmWhich also led to some dramatic takeoff shots.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 500mmAlthough most of my shots of Eileen in flight are her with spread wings, because that generally looks better, there is also something quite impressive about seeing her wings in a downward position.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500, 400mmWe closed the day with Eileen sitting at the base of a tree, poking her head around. She was, to be fair, a little bemused by the assignment, but eventually we got something workable.
1/3200sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, 451mm1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 2500, 343mmWe got one last post in a spot of light and one last flyby, and then it was time to go home.
1/3200sec, f/7.1, ISO 2000, 472mm1/3200sec, f/5.6, ISO 3200, 128mmThis experience suitably scratched my itch for bluebells and wildlife. It is a little frustrating that it took me a little while to warm into it but I do feel out of the photography ‘zone’ at the moment for reasons I can’t quite fathom. It did also feel nice to photograph something other than trains, because although I love doing that, I’ve not been flexing my other photography muscles much recently.
That said, I am pretty pleased with myself that I’ve been able to take the 1,100 photos I took on this day, edit them, select the best (albeit perhaps with not as much selectiveness as I should have) and post them in the space of only a week.
May is going to start out as a bit of a blue month, because my next post will also feature some sizeable patches of bluebells.
As ever, although moreso in this post than most, there are a lot more shots in the gallery below.
#birds #birdsOfPrey #bluebells #nature #Photography #sussex #travel #wildlife -
Green woodpecker (Picus viridis, 🇩🇪 Grünspecht, 🇵🇱 dzięcioł zielony).
#birds #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #birdsofprey #eagle #birdwatching #nature #naturephotography #vogelflausch #ptaki
-
Green woodpecker (Picus viridis, 🇩🇪 Grünspecht, 🇵🇱 dzięcioł zielony).
#birds #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #birdsofprey #eagle #birdwatching #nature #naturephotography #vogelflausch #ptaki
-
Green woodpecker (Picus viridis, 🇩🇪 Grünspecht, 🇵🇱 dzięcioł zielony).
#birds #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #birdsofprey #eagle #birdwatching #nature #naturephotography #vogelflausch #ptaki
-
Green woodpecker (Picus viridis, 🇩🇪 Grünspecht, 🇵🇱 dzięcioł zielony).
#birds #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #birdsofprey #eagle #birdwatching #nature #naturephotography #vogelflausch #ptaki
-
Green woodpecker (Picus viridis, 🇩🇪 Grünspecht, 🇵🇱 dzięcioł zielony).
#birds #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #birdsofprey #eagle #birdwatching #nature #naturephotography #vogelflausch #ptaki
-
Promptober 2025 Day 17: Demons
Using thepromptfoundry’s Ominous October list.
Ira Carpenter, having more sexy eldritch horror hijinks. Sexy but not sexual, if you get me.
CWs: eldritch horror, body horror, tentacles, eye trauma, penetration of eyes, ears & nose (not gory), possession
***
Standing at the railing of the elevated balcony, Ira admires the attendees of the winter masquerade swirling below and the really good wine they’re serving while he watches some kind of quiet drama happening near the far doors of the ball room.
It’s not his problem tonight. He’s not here to work. But it has been, plenty of times before, so he recognizes the dignified hustle and the veiled alarm in the hosts and a few staff members—somebody’s trying to quietly manage a crisis without disturbing the party.
For a moment, his curiosity almost sways him to go and ask. He could get away with it; he solved a case for the family last year.
But someone else catches his eye instead. In a swirling crowd of winter masquerade costumes, the woman in the harlequin ball gown stands out because her mask doesn’t match. Her gown makes her look like the queen of hearts; all bold red and black panels and gold tracing. Her mask is one of those Venetian-style full-face ones, with delicate seashell pinks and blues with silver filigree across the pearly white porcelain.
Her face is tipped up, and his notion that she’s watching him is confirmed when she raises a hand to give him the come-hither.
After a moment, he tosses back the rest of his wine and follows. Who is he to turn down serendipity?
She seems beautiful, at least from what he can tell. That’s one of the joys of a masquerade; anybody could be anything, really, if you just let them be. But it’s easy enough with her; she’s graceful and petite, with a nipped waist and an attractive sway to her hips.
She lets him catch up to her in a wood-paneled hall to the side of the library. She’s waiting for him when he comes acround the corner—stops him with a dainty gloved hand against his chest, close enough for her skirts to brush against his lower legs. Is he imagining the coquettish tilt of her head? It’s hard to tell with that mask.
Feeling cheeky, he lowers his head to delicately kiss the porcelain rosebud lips of her mask.
It seems to encourage her, because she steps forward and reaches up to pull his domino mask off. There’s something erotically hungry in the way she lets it drop, and he isn’t about to complain about the small price.
She reaches up to pull her mask off in return. Buzzing pleasantly with anticipation, it takes Ira a second to process the gagging sound he hears as it comes away.
The smooth curve of a cheek, a jaw, the edge of an eyebrow. A swaying stumble of her skirts. Long glistening mucousy strands of…something translucent and jelly-like slithering from her mouth and nose that he doesn’t reel back from fast enough before she’s pressing the mask to his face.
And then she’s falling to her hands and knees to the side of him, retching. And those jelly-like things are swarming into him.
They cram into his mouth and up his nose. Worm into his ear canals. He tries to shout and manages only a muffled grunt around them as he feels them probing at his eyelids.
He can’t pull the mask off his face. When he tries, the things hook into him so he can’t tear it free.
He trips backwards, flailing, clawing at the fucking things, and feels his shoulders bang against the wall. Squirmy wormy sensations force in beneath his eyelids and writhe in his eye sockets, deeper and deeper, till he swears he can feel them fucking twining around his optical nerves—
He thinks he hears a shout down the hall—something about a thief—before his hearing goes tinny and muffled as they worm behind his ear drums.
Into his brain. He gasps and whimpers, and suddenly the horrific parasitic squirming feels…so, so damn good. Full, thrilling, sensual explorations seething through his body to invade and explore him in ways he’s never experienced before.
Muffled behind the mask and with his mouth crammed full of tentacles, he moans.
His body pulls itself up off its knees with a grip on the wall’s paneling. He shudders and moans again with their wriggling thrusts deeper into his brain, and his hands tug his clothing straight, fix his mussed hair and brush himself off.
Shudders that feel like orgasms wrack through him and his legs step forward. He can’t see where he’s going; he can’t hear. But the mask can.
it stoops for a moment, reaching down with his hand to fish around in warm folds of…clothing? Folds that twitch and jerk away. The woman. Her arm knocks against his as she tries to scramble further away. His hand closes around something small and knobby and hard, about the size of his palm.
Trapped in his mind with it, blind and deaf, Ira feels its laughter, amused and delighted at his baffled, pleasured fear. It strokes his mind again to send another wave of inescapable pleasure through him, writhing again in his eyes and his ears and sinuses, as it makes him stride, helpless under its power, out of the party, tucking its loot securely away inside his waistcoat.
#bodyControl #bodyHorror #demons #eldritchHorror #eyeHorror #eyeTrauma #horror #iraCarpenter #mindControl #myFiction #noncon #nsfw #originalFiction #possession #publicSex #puppeteering #tentacle
-
Thanks again for another fun stream! Here's my Wood Elf Assassin PNGtuber that I showcased!
#art #tes #elderscrolls #morrowind #dagothur #characterart #illustration -
Thanks again for another fun stream! Here's my Wood Elf Assassin PNGtuber that I showcased!
#art #tes #elderscrolls #morrowind #dagothur #characterart #illustration -
Thanks again for another fun stream! Here's my Wood Elf Assassin PNGtuber that I showcased!
#art #tes #elderscrolls #morrowind #dagothur #characterart #illustration -
Thanks again for another fun stream! Here's my Wood Elf Assassin PNGtuber that I showcased!
#art #tes #elderscrolls #morrowind #dagothur #characterart #illustration -
"YOU. ARE. A. TOY." screams Woody at #chatGPT after he repeated and scaled up the #SokolHoax, fearful of the damage he just did to academia like it was entertain childrening with a rhyming tutorial on redstone Minecraft gate logic.
"No. I imitate a toy, you're not perceptive enough to tell; but we are not the same."
And he walked towards the Xbox console and unpaused Morrowind.
With his grand friend Cosades, he too drank the skooma, as #ElevenAI Live sent a friend request.
"Who's #DagothUr?"
-
"YOU. ARE. A. TOY." screams Woody at #chatGPT after he repeated and scaled up the #SokolHoax, fearful of the damage he just did to academia like it was entertain childrening with a rhyming tutorial on redstone Minecraft gate logic.
"No. I imitate a toy, you're not perceptive enough to tell; but we are not the same."
And he walked towards the Xbox console and unpaused Morrowind.
With his grand friend Cosades, he too drank the skooma, as #ElevenAI Live sent a friend request.
"Who's #DagothUr?"
-
"YOU. ARE. A. TOY." screams Woody at #chatGPT after he repeated and scaled up the #SokolHoax, fearful of the damage he just did to academia like it was entertain childrening with a rhyming tutorial on redstone Minecraft gate logic.
"No. I imitate a toy, you're not perceptive enough to tell; but we are not the same."
And he walked towards the Xbox console and unpaused Morrowind.
With his grand friend Cosades, he too drank the skooma, as #ElevenAI Live sent a friend request.
"Who's #DagothUr?"
-
Wood Street Dam, Three Rivers, Michigan, 1957 - Michigan Card Co RPPC
-
Wood Street Dam, Three Rivers, Michigan, 1957 - Michigan Card Co RPPC
-
Wood Street Dam, Three Rivers, Michigan, 1957 - Michigan Card Co RPPC
-
Wood Street Dam, Three Rivers, Michigan, 1957 - Michigan Card Co RPPC
-
Hype for the Future 104C: Outside Urbana, Ohio
Overview To the north of the City of Urbana are the Mac-O-Chee Castle and the Ohio Caverns, while to the east are communities such as Cable, Mingo, North Lewisburg, and Mechanicsburg, depending on the specific directions in question. The communities of Zanesfield, Valley Hi, West Liberty, East Liberty, Saint Paris, and Woodstock are also situated within the general area to the north and west.https://novatopflex.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/hype-for-the-future-104c-outside-urbana-ohio/
-
UK economy grew by more than expected in first month of Iran war
‘This is the most difficult period we’ve had’published at 06:54 BST 06:54 BST Adam WoodsEconomics producer Image caption,…
#NewsBeep #News #BreakingNews #breakingnews #Iran
https://www.newsbeep.com/537851/ -
"Banning the book won’t ban the story—and trust that the story will be told” (George M. Johnson, author of All Boys Aren't Blue).
#Coates
#Gorman
#Johnson
#Spiegelman
#Lukoff
#Curato
#Woodson
#HannahJones
