Saturday 27 August 2011

Medway Estuary and the Marsh

This is one of my favourite place to visit as the road goes within feet of the river. There is a pull off the road where you can set up a tripod and work from the boot of your car. It is open water right down to the Is Of Sheppy. At low water the birds settle on the mud and foliage on the islands for food. One problem is that they never come in that close.  For this reason I wanted to try my new 500mm lens. Well that was a mistake as it is a lens that needs to be learnt! I tried hard to get things into focus and gave up in the end. I will learn to use it at home so that I can try later out on the road. I reverted to using my trusty 300mm with it's distance limitations.

Having settled in "my" spot I looked round to find three colonies of Gulls. these were on the limit of the lens but most came out ok. The problem is distance and a moving target means a lot of out of focus shots.

There were some different type of birds there and again at a distance. I've tried to get some shots to identify them but no go at the moment.

Just to start you off a look round
Across the estuary



Bracken on the side of the road


Colony across the river


Part of the marsh

Now some of the birds

These rather black ones I am trying to ID


and again
They don't have long enough beaks for Oyster catchers

This is a flock of them


Sawing Gull
He came quite close



 I love taking these shots, when they come out well they look good.

This bird has an attitude problem

Attitude he sure was telling me to go away squawking all the time, well I wan't going anywhere and I am bigger than him


Well that's it for today, no sunset tonight

Let's see what tomorrow brings

5 comments:

  1. Shame about the 500mm lens, hope you get the knack of it. Then bracken by the side of the road is good but to my eyes the bird shots need a bit of a lift if that's the right words. Good attempt though.

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  2. Hi Trev,good luck with the 500mm lens.....cant wait to see what the shots are like with that !!
    Have a good sunday,
    regards
    chris R
    x

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  3. Thanks both,

    Mike I have found out that I can't focus with the 500 because of my glasses. I can't focus without and because of the very lens it is not sharp.

    Don't forget theses birds are mostly on the limit of the lens so if you sharpen them any more it would be over the top. The close up ones are of because the lens has room. What you need is a big 1200mm lens, so if you can give me £20,000 for it I will see what I can do , LOL

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  4. Cheque in the post.

    Oh and you taking it back then I wonder??

    I'm not talking about sharpening I mean levels at the long reach to improve the contrast. I do not want to upset you but they could do with a bit more "POP" Please dont take this the wrong way, perhaps we could go out somewhere?

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  5. The Gull one landing is much better, well done.

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