Simply Gulls

With the January weather continuing to be a disappointment from a photography perspective, I thought I would turn the clock back a few weeks. Living by the seaside I am surrounded by gulls and so it is inevitable the some should find their way in front of the lens. I must admit I do enjoy photographing them as they are always entertaining and if you have a loaf of bread instantly become your new best 'friends'. So here is a compilation of some photos taken towards the back end of last year that I did not get an opportunity to show. I will start with the most common species the Black-headed Gull which is probably the most likely to be ignored by the photographer. The first was taken against storm clouds in the last light of the day and for a few fleeting moments the sky was filled with swirling golden arc of gulls, a memorable sight.

While on the topic of great light, while the ground covered in snow there was some superb up lighting on the birds.

The local raised Model Boating Lake always offers some good opportunities at high tide for bathing birds. Water level photos are achieved in relative comfort and without the need for scrabbling around on the floor.

and a young bird undertaking a bit of feather maintenance.

There are also good numbers of Common Gull or as they seem to becoming more frequently labelled Mew Gull.

Lurking in the unusually deep snow we experienced this winter.

Herring Gull are common and its is quite easy to see how a whole herring could easily slip down that gaping void.

A young bird undergoing some acrobatic manoeuvres on the local boating lake.

I think the manufacturer of the local seaside telescopes show change their name to 'Gull Scopes'. A Lesser Black-backed Gull on watch duty.

To finish off the scarce Mediterranean Gull which has been lurking in amongst the Black-headed Gulls all winter. It usually takes a bit of finding due to the similarity in looks, particularly when the whole flock takes flight. I am hoping this one will stay around long enough this year to transform in to their wonderful summer plumage. This first photograph was taken again when snow was on the ground on a beautiful crisp clear day.

As I have said many times before and no doubt will do so again the future, never ignore the common birds around you :)

Glorious Gulls

I really enjoy photographing sea gulls especially in that soft late in the day light. The gulls have recently been returning from their summer nesting grounds so I took the opportunity to photograph some while still in their summer plumage. They usually lose this plumage very quickly on return.

Starting straight off with a couple of portraits of a Black-headed Gull and Common Gull.

They also make for some great flight subjects with this set taken in a short session one evening after work.

To finish this set a young Lesser Black-Backed Gull in some evening light

The waders are now returning from the north so it is time to switch my attentions.

Testing the Canon 50D

I decided to take the plunge and pick up a Canon 50D body which I thought would provide a useful back up body. It certainly on paper has some advantages for bird photography 1.6x sensor, 15 megapixels (useful for cropping) and a reasonable frame rate at 6.5 fps. It comes with a host of other features. most of which I disabled before use except tuning it in with my long lens using the autofocus micro-adjust. So off I went to find some birds to photograph. The first session was in some very windy conditions on the local shore.

A purple sandpiper in some late afternoon light

...and a passing herring gull. The first thing I noticed is that the autofocus is very fast and quickly locks on to target.The next session was under much calmer conditions and the first test subject was some mallard.

My inital thoughts from these shots were:

• The files are huge and you only get about 178 images on a 4 gig card
  
• The images had more noise than my mk3 but it seemed to clean up well in a noise reduction program.
  
• The main issue was that the only RAW software that I have which will open the files is DPP supplied with the camera which has to be near the bottom of my personal list when it comes to RAW convertors.

Back out for another session on the local coast.

Common gull in flight

and then a test on the local Egrets in some end of the day light

My verdict from the inital tests are that the camera performs reasonably well although I would not say the image is quality is as a good as the mk3, but then again the 50D is a 1/3 of the cost. Obviously I need to give it some more testing and it usually take me a while to settle in with a new camera body. I will probably also feel more settled with it once I can load the raw files into my usual Capture One raw software.

Gulls

As a bird photographer it is often easy to overlook the common species and with living by the coast I tend to take gulls for granted. However, I have been building up a collection of gull shots recently and thought I would select a few for a compilation post. Starting off with the very common, the black-headed gull. I often use them for practicing my flying bird shots.

This bird was going through the motions of calling but no sound was emerging.
We have plenty of common gull locally, which are comical to watch as the drop shellfish, dug from the beach, on to concrete from height to get at the contents. This bird was just about to drop into a dive having dropped a cockle.

On the beach and taking a dip

Moving up the size scale to the Herring GullThe Lesser Black-backed gull on a sunny morningand the largest gull, a Greater Black-backed gull on a gloomy morning. These seem to be increasing in numbers locally andare very impressive and predatory birds.

Some Bird in Flight Tests

There has been a lot of debate over the focusing abilities of the 1D mk3 for birds in flight. So decided to give it a test out. The obvious choice for such shots is seagulls which are in abundance here on the coast. Ok these may not represent a big as an auofocus challenge compared with small birds against a varied background but nevertheless a good starting point. First up black-headed gull

Not quite flying but the moment of lift-off

Common GullThese gulls locally show some interesting beviour where the fly out to the sand banks at low water, collect a cockle and other shell fish, and then drop it from height on the concrete seawall to crack the shell and get to the contents. Here is one returning tothe beach to eat the contents after a successful drop and smash.

The only other flight shot so far is of this canada goose coming in to land. So far the rate of 'keeper shots has been broadly in line with what I would expect for flight shots.