Showing posts with label Slimbridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Slimbridge. Show all posts

Sunday, 29 January 2012

Slimbridge selection

I visited Slimbridge WWT yesterday and was lucky with the superb light.  Below are a few highlights of a stunning day.  The shots below are from both the wild side and the captive side, eg the Smew and the Flamingos rae obviously captive.  I deliberated for a while on whether to post the shots here, but I liked them.

Bewick's Swans coming into roost late in the afternoon.  Only 150 or so of the normal 300+ have reappeared this year.

Grey Heron feeding in one of the many pools.

Female Common Pochard

Drake Pochard

Drake Smew (captive)

Woodpigeons pairing up for the breeding season.

Flamingos going through their rituals. 

Monday, 22 February 2010

Slimbridge specials

This group of images are the final post from duck city.  The previous posts mainly show wild birds whereas this post shows captive birds.  Nevertheless, they are still glamourous and retain all the character of genuine wild fowl.  For the budding bird photographer, the opportunities for practice are endless.

The chances to experiment with camera exposure and shallow depth of field are endless.  All of these shots are unmanipulated except for some minor cropping.  Spot metering has been used so that the exposure has been taken from the subject. 

The pair of Canvasbacks below show a very low depth of field so that the eye and head is in focus but all other parts of the photo are out of focus creating the "bokeh" effect.  To me this is the most attractive way of presenting wildlife. (IMHO!).