Fuji Finepix HS20 EXR - November 20th

I have recently purchased a Fuji Finepix HS20 EXR and today at Arundel Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust i gave it its first proper outing, the birds in the collection here are at close range of course but testing this camera in various situations on this family day out gave me a good idea of what its capable of.

I have generally slagged off bridge cameras in the past because I am a DSLR owner and obviously this will never be my first choice for wildlife (though perhaps for Macro work!) . However results in ideal shooting conditions are comparable with DSLR images when pixel peeping at 100%, not surprisingly it struggles in poor shooting conditions and that's when the differences become obvious, for example it is noisy at high ISO’s, however it does have lots of bells and whistles to deal with these kinds of issues and some interesting and potentially useful features.

It’s ideal for a family day out when you don’t want the hassle of carrying all the DSLR gear and it's capable of producing a decent wildlife image or at least a record shot! Full HD Video is good quality and with 16mp i'll  have plenty of scope for cropping to enlarge and still retaining enough detail for large prints. I could have bought a newer more expensive bridge camera but I had set a budget of £250 and this fitted all the specifications I required. I few images from Arundel above and below.

Hook Acro - 16th October

An interesting Acrocephalus Warbler was found at Hook today which was in the end caught and ringed. Speculation about the ID ranged from Marsh Warbler to Blyth's Reed Warbler but in the hand it seemed it could only be a Reed Warbler perhaps of the eastern sub-species Fuscus. Here are a few pictures.

Hayling Island - 11th October

I managed to spend three hours down on Hayling today where the shingle bar at The Kench had good numbers of the expected waders feeding as the tide dropped. There must be at least a thousand Brent Geese in the harbour now too. The only other bird of note here was a nice male Common Scoter hanging around the area until the tide dropped and it took flight and landed again on the water further out in the harbour.

I spent the last part of the afternoon with ACJ having a brief seawatch from Sandy Point. The highlight was this juvenile Arctic Skua which put on an excellent but brief show harassing a gull just offshore and over the beach.

Pennington Marshes - 3rd October

I spent the morning on Hayling Island and having seen little else but a few Chiffchaffs, the news of a juv Rosy Starling at Pennington was quite welcome and after some initial hesitance i decided to go. The Starling took a little bit of work to track down amongst the several hundred common Starling and after a brief view perched on brambles and a few flight views it was pined down feeding on the deck in amongst the throng.

However it was picked up again in flight and disappeared off west into the distance mid afternoon.

It was good to once again connect with the Semi-palmated Sandpiper which was still showing well on the Jetty Lagoon, Pennington Marshes.

So not a bad day at all!

Pennington Marshes - 26th September

As it turned out i did manage to catch up with the Semi-palmated Sandpiper at Pennington Marshes, it showed well though to far away for good photos, with a group of Dunlin and associated closely at times with a Little Stint giving a nice comparison. I had assumed i would dip this one but the Sabine's Gulls at Sturt pond do continue to elude me.

Wrong place wrong time - 24th Sept

My week off work is just about at an end and Pallid Harrier was the undoubted highlight. In Hampshire terms I've been very unlucky. I've tried to cover most of the key sites and found very little of note. Just to rub it in good birds have literally turned up at sites I have visited the day or two days before, on days when I have other commitments. Some days I wish I was possessed by a simpler hobby, but that would be no fun would it.

Richard Ford - Wildlife Photography
http://www.digitalwildlife.co.uk

More pictures of the Pallid Harrier, Burpham, West Sussex – 21st Sept 2011

Pallid Harrier, Burpham, West Sussex – 21st Sept 2011

What a bird, What a bird……

One of those twitches that had everything for me, we didn’t have to wait to long before it showed. When it did it showed for prolonged periods and performed brilliantly. If you were in the right place at the right time it showed well at close range allowing scrutiny of id features and good photographs. This bird has character, it gets a lot of attention from the local corvids, Kestrels and Buzzards give it hassle but it gives it back, on more than one occasion we saw it have a go at Crows and a Kestrels almost for fun, we watched it successfully hunting, feeding, preening and chasing Partridges (don’t tell the local game keeper) and best of all it looks AWSOME……

Here are a couple of photos, not doubt there will be more when I have sorted through them.

I also saw the Weir Wood Res, Long-toed Stint today (if that is what it is) which by comparison just isn’t worth mentioning.

Pennington to Farlington - 18th Sept

I'm just about start another week off work and though i wont be able to get out every day i do hope to cover the Langstone Hbr area as much as possible with a few trips further afield and maybe out of county if necessary. Fingers crossed for some good birds and with any luck it will be me that finds them!!


Today i spent the morning and early afternoon a Pennington Marshes in the hope of connecting with the the Bairds Sandpiper again ideally on the Shoveler pools which has to be the only place with a chance of it being close enough for good photos. No sign all day despite plenty of people looking though it was reported early AM and late PM, to put it diplomatically those reports surprised me!! Hmmm.... anyway Grey Phal on the Normandy Lagoon was nice and there were Curlew Sands, Little Stints, Spotshanks and a fly over Osprey to keep things ticking over.

I dropped in on Farlington Lake and the stream on the way back where two Ruff and a Whinchat were the best of little else of note there.

Baird's Sandpiper, Pennington - 15th September

I bit of a mad dash to Pennington this afternoon in the hope of connecting with the reported Baird's Sandpiper. I had approximately four hours to spare which left me with two hours to see the bird, it seemed like enough time, but two hours turned into an hour and a half and when i arrived the bird hadn't been seen for some time, a few useful conversation and text were exchanged (thanks SI and SP) and i relocated the bird at the back of Butts Lagoon with half and hour to spare......Phew. I enjoyed some good scope views but sadly for photos it needed to be on the Shoveler pools. An added bonus during the afternoon was five flyover Spoonbills. I got home a bit late but no harm done and another Hants tick in the bag.

Two record shots below

Farlington - 31st August

Thanks to Martin Gillingham for todays Temminks Stint on the lake at Farlington, which showed well if distantly untill it flew off west.

SE Hampshire - 21st-23rd August

I’ve been able to get out and about on and off over the last few days and aside from a brief visit to Pennington Marshes I have concentrated on trying to find migrants in the Langstone Harbour area, including Hayling Island and Farlington Marshes. Basically the expected areas such as Northney Paddocks and the bushes at Farlington have contained the expected Warblers such as, Whitethroats, Chiffchaffs, Blackcap and the odd Garden Warbler, Lesser Whitetroat and Spotted Flycatcher. Yellow Wagtails have been a near constant feature particularly at Farlington. There seems to be poor numbers of waders but the rubbish neap tide is giving them more options of high tide roost sites so they are less concentrated. A single Spotted Redshank is about as good as it has got. Singles of juv Curlew Sandpiper and juv Little Stint were the best of very few birds in the Pennington area on 21st Aug.

The undoubted highlight is the continued presence of two Ospreys in Langstone Harbour which are pretty easy to find but always distant. When they are not flying around, one bird seems to favour South Binness Island and the other uses marker posts (usually a red one) near to the west Hayling shore.

Birdguides Photo of the Week: 4th–10th August

I guess i may as well point out on here that i was very pleased to be awarded photo of the week by Birdguides. http://www.birdguides.com/iris/pictures.asp?mode=potw&rty=0&r=1&v=1&off=313143

In their summary they were also kind enough to say probably the nicest things ever to have been said about one of my photographs. See below:

Although our choice of Photo of the Week is based entirely on the image rather than who took it, regular readers of our PotW citations will have realised that we're always particularly pleased to be able to award people their first PotW, especially it they've been long-standing photo contributors. Bird photographer Richard Ford has been uploading images to BirdGuides since early 2004, at which point his Digital Wildlife website was already up and running. Richard's photography is very focused on the county of Hanpshire and he now maintains a blog of his birding and nature photography forays around that county. This week, visiting Hayling Island in the hope of picking up some migrants, Richard had to settle for pointing his camera at the local Sparrowhawk family sparring with crows. Lack of species interest, though, was more than made up for by some gorgeous evening light bathing the hawks, and Richard's pick of the session definitely made his visit worthwhile. The colour combination of the rich blue sky and the warm hues of the flying bird give this image instant appeal, after which the other qualities of the image start to hit the viewer: great bird, great pose, open bill, steep banking, dynamic angles, superb detail, the list goes on. As we've said before, a steeply banking bird front-lit by low altitude sunlight is a great recipe for successful flight shooting, but Richard's image goes way beyond the basic application of this technique.

Photo of the Week citation (admin), 11/08/11 11:37

Titchfield Haven Roseate Tern, composite image

A composite of three other flight shots

Titchfield Haven – 7th August

After dipping Roseate Tern at Titchfield Haven last week I had been reluctant to make the trek over to Titchfield again for fear of another dipping session. But at least one bird had continued to be reported all week and this morning I felt I may as well give it another go. On my arrival I started to scan the small gathering of Terns on the beach in front of the sailing club to no avail, the tide was high and I expected to have to wait until the large number of Terns in the Solent returned to roost on the exposed shingle as the tide dropped. I could see there were a few Terns on the river and around the island near the visitors centre and so I wandered over to the viewing area and began to scan through them. It wasn't long before I noticed the Roseate Tern in the photographs below. 

SW Hayling Island - 3rd August

I popped down to Hayling again this evening in the hope of picking up some migrants or perhaps relocating yesterdays Cattle Egret, birding was still pretty heavy going and the best I could manage was two adult Yellow-legged Gulls at The Kench. There were also a few Whimbrel and Bar-tailed Godwits in the harbour among other Waders. The highlight was probably the local Sparrowhawk family putting on a good show with up to three juveniles flying around this evening harassing and being harassed by the local crows, as well as playfully dive bombing each other. Unfortunately much of the action was too fast to capture but I did get a few nice flight shots of which this was certainly the best. 

SE Hampshire - 2nd August

Sunset over Langstone Harbour

I dropped into Farlington Marshes this afternoon to see if the high tide roost at the lake had anything to offer. It was quite impressive with thousands of waders roosting here but nothing out of the ordinary.

From Farlington I moved onto The Kench at SW Hayling Island where I was surprised to find a Cattle Egret out on the salt marsh early this evening. It was mobile and unfortunately I lost track of it and didn’t relocate it in the harbour despite looking until dusk.

Cattle Egret record shot

Titchfield Haven - 28th July

I spent the morning in the Titchfield Haven area where unfortunately I did not connect with any Roseate Terns, though there were one or two reports during the time I was there. However I did connect with two other interesting terns among the large numbers of Common Terns present in the area.

Adult Arctic Tern

Juvenile Black Tern

Sunset at the Kench, Hayling Island last night (27th July)

Hayling Island - 24th July 2011

Not a great deal or interest around the west of the Island this morning though two Yellow-legged Gulls and a Little Owlett were of some note.

Yellow-legged Gull, Hayling Island - July 2011

I have a few photos below of a Yellow-legged Gull that is currently frequenting the seafront near the funfair on Hayling Island. There is also a short video on my page here http://www.digitalwildlife.co.uk/videos/  in which you can see the bird among Herring Gulls for comparison.

There are also a few more pictures of this bird here

http://www.digitalwildlife.co.uk/birds/yellowlegull.htm

Little Owls, Passfield - July 2011

I have spent I some time over the last week in the territory of a reliable pair of Little Owls, though I haven’t seen much of the adults, they have at least two full grown juveniles which have been quite showy. There are a few photos below and a video here http://www.digitalwildlife.co.uk/videos/  edited together from full HD clips taken on the Canon 7D.

Richard

WWT London Wetlands Centre, Barnes - 4th July 2011

WWT London Wetlands Centre, Barnes

I spent a very pleasant day at the WWT London Wetlands Centre, Barnes great to see so many different waterfowl species breeding here including several pairs of Pochard with ducklings.

A few photos from the day below

Red-breasted Goose 

Bathing female Tufted Duck

Little Grebe

Bathing female Tufted Duck

A walk on the chalk (video) - Hampshire - 19th June 2011

I am still trying find a way to display video at a better quality on this blog, in the mean time I have uploaded a short film, which sums up my walk on the chalk on Sunday, just follow this link www.digitalwildlife.co.uk/videos  and click on the 'walk on the chalk' video.

Update: I have finally figured out how to embed videos into my site so you can now follow the above link and the video should be playing once its loaded. Right click on the image for other options.

A walk on the chalk - 19th June 2011

I had a pleasant though rather breezy ‘walk on the chalk’ this afternoons. One Peregrine chick at this site had very recently fledged. Photos below and a video to come hopefully, all of which where taken today at the same site.

Juvenile Peregrine Falcon

Marbled White Butterfly

Juvenile Peregrine Falcon

Juvenile Peregrine Falcon