Friday, January 22, 2010

Doctor's Orders

Photographing wildlife can put a fair amount of strain on the body. Anyone who has ever tried making a commando crawl with camera gear across estuary mud for wading birds will certainly know the aches and pains that can result a couple of days later. Often you need to adopt awkward positions with a heavy camera, to get the angle on the subject, whilst staying still for long periods which can play havoc with some muscles. The upshot of my recent photographic exploits have left me with intense pain down the right side of the neck that doesn't seem to be improving and so I headed to the docs. The Doctor's orders were ..'no photography for two weeks' and not the 'you should take a long holiday somewhere exotic with your camera' that I was hoping for. The withdrawal symptoms are already setting in but softened by the poor weather and light.

I do have a bit of a backlog of photographs and so will be able to keep with regular Blog posts while I recover. The set of images for this post were taken on New Years Day. I always start the year with a clean slate and as if I have never photographed anything as it gives you fresh eyes even for the very common. I also like to start with a productive first session and headed off with my friend Steve down to the Midlands for the day. The roads were quiet and I was hoping for a peaceful day, not really thinking that later everyone would be out in the sun walking off their hangovers! Despite the disruption it was a fun start with a good variety of tit species to photograph.
A tiny bird that requires some quick responses with the camera, the Coal Tit
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At the other end of the tit size scale, the Great Tit.
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The Blue Tit, which really are beautiful birds when you stop and take time to look at their colours.
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A group of Long-tailed Tit fluttered through quickly but just as the sun disappeared behind a cloud.
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One of the birds I had travelled to target was the Willow Tit. These hyperactive birds are always tricky to photograph.
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The other bird I was hoping to photograph, the Yellowhammer, did not show very well due to the number of people walking around with only this less colourful female bird appearing.
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13 comments:

Paul Foster said...

Again fantastic images of some of our more common birds.You always seem to get the light spot on Richard.Really admire your work!!

boops said...

do you sell your images? i must have image #2 (the great tit)

Unknown said...

Lovely images to start the year with, Long Tailed Tit has to me my fave. Hope you get your neck sorted soon.

Paul.

Sally H said...

Sorry to hear about your enforced rest and hope the pain disappears quickly! Love that coal tit, especially the frosty branch!

Dale Forbes said...

wow, that truly is an incredible set of photos. I love the colour intensity and the way you have captured so much of their tit-ness

happy birding,
Dale
http://alpinebirds.blogspot.com

Javier Alonso Torre said...

Hello,
excuses for my English.
I have just discovered your blog and I have liked them very much the quality of your photos. I will follow your work.

David.GG said...

Hello. Very beatiful blog. A partir de ahora sere uno de tus seguidores.

http://faunaorientalleonesa.blogspot.com/

Saludos

Ars Natura said...

Good collection.

biologion said...

all the photos are amazing, but i liked the long tailed tit the most!

Mary Howell Cromer said...

All of these photographs are great, but I especially adored the ones of the Coal Tit and the Long-tailed Tit, had never heard of, or seen either before this. Totally awesome~

JRandSue said...

My God,what fantastic photography.
Brilliant Images.
John.

Matt Latham said...

Great start to the year I would say, how are you finding the 7d??

Cheers
Matt

Kerri Farley said...

I'm doing my 'catching up' and see that you have been under the weather. I hope you are feeling better now!
Fabulous shots once again! (I'm running out of adjectives)

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