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