Pennington Flash - Day 2

So for my second trip out to Pennington Flash I decided to take my 300mm prime lens, 1.4x teleconverter and crop sensor body camera to give me a bit more reach.  What - you don't understand all this technobabble?  Well it just means that I can get a bit nearer to my subjects than with my previous camera and lens setup, and that's what you generally need for birds.  This near:

Well maybe that's a bit over the top, because Grey Herons are big birds and they often come quite close. But that is unusually close so here's a more usual set of shots:

 

 

I met up with another local photographer, Paul Samuels, in Ramsdale's Hide.  We had a good chinwag about many things including photography, birds, scuba diving, the Forest of Dean, Murcia and the Kingfishers for which we were patiently waiting.  Fortunately for him, Paul had got some cracking shots from Horrocks' Hide two days previously, because today they weren't coming close.

This Kestrel was calling in the treetops above the water before eventually flying off:

The Kingfisher only appeared briefly and in the distance here today, so we moved on to Tom Edmonson's hide where, although you are farther away from the birds, the light is much better.  When it first flew over me I wasn't sure if this was a Gadwall or a Mallard - it's a Gadwall.

This Buzzard flew across the far side of the water but was difficult to photograph because the windows in this hide are only narrow slits with not much room to manoeuvre.

A pair of Mute Swans  with four beautiful cygnets appeared from the pool in front of Pengy's Hide. Here's one of the adults:

Now this one is a Mallard:

And then the Kingfisher started to appear, staying quite distant at first.

We had visits every 30 to 40 minutes or so, often dropping of the posts to catch very small fish.

This was the closest he came, but as it was in the shade there's no real detail.  I really could have done with my 500mm lens at this point, but there will always be another day.

During the afternoon we had a brief visit by this little chap who bounced his way across the from of the hide. I've seen less red in a Red Squirrel than in this Grey Squirrel - cheeky little bounder!

 

And to finish off two Teenage Mutant Ninja Heroes - they'll be eating all the pond life, the  little terras!