Poor light means high ISO

An early start this morning at Stithians Reservoir sees the weather deteriorate with low light levels obviously affecting shutter speed. The Great-crested Grebe shots below were taken at 2000 ISO, just enough to give 125th second shutter speed. The two images below were taken with the D3 and 300mm F/2.8 and 1.4x TC. Aperture was set to F/4 and exposure 0.0, WB set to Cloudy. Great-crested Grebe is uncommon at Stithians. This individual was found last week by Simon Taylor and was heard calling continuously today. It was also displaying and advertising itself energetically this morning. Presumably it's a male.




The images of Great Spotted Woodpecker and Robin were taken from the southern cut-off hide this morning. The light had improved a little but the rain can be seen in the woodpecker image. The two shots were taken with 1000 ISO setting and the same equipment as above. There is no graininess or noise at all.

A rare sight in Cornwall - frost and ice

A mixed bag of images today but the underlying theme is definitly frost and ice - I cannot remember the last time the reservoirs and lakes froze over. The morning started off at -2.5 degrees but generally warmed up later in the day. The image below at about 7.45 this morning is the southern cut off with the feeding station in the left corner. The colour of the sunrise is totally original and unchanged...stunning.

Bullfinch, Robin and Snipe at Stithians

On a cold and very windy day, these Bullfinch, Robin and Snipe shots were taken from Stithians hide and added some spice to a very wintery day. A family party of Bullfinch had been seen the previous day here, so after some five hours of waiting in the hide, we were rewarded with some reasonably close views. The light was extremely changeable and stupidly I forgot to check the exposure and ISO reading, resulting in a slightly over exposed Bullfinch image. Photoshop CS3 has corrected the error!









The three Common Snipe were showing in front of the hide virtually all morning. One of the birds is distinctively greyer and has a double streak on the front of its neck. It was regularly defending its roosting area by poking others who came too close.