Greenshanks at St Clement, Truro

I took these shots this evening in stunning late sunshine. There were four adult Greenshanks plus a summer plumage Black-tailed Godwit, though this bird was too far for photography. The River Fal complex is particularly good for wintering and migrant Greenshanks, both in Spring and Autumn. These four won't be around for much longer as they will make their way north to Scandinavia to breed.

St Clement village at high tide. Coincidentally, this was the same spot where I photo'd Lesser Yellowlegs last Autumn.

Nice legs

This Lesser Yellowlegs arrived three weeks ago in the aftermath of Hurricane Katia and seems quite content here at St Clement, Truro, no doubt content with its new surroundings.  Initially I found this individual quite flighty but today it was very confiding, affording unbelievably close views at high tide, beside the village car park.

My own Nikon camera is away being serviced so was using Kate's D300s.  I completely underestimated the camera's 1.5x crop value and had to remove the 1.4x converter.  Even so, I struggled to fit those long yellow legs into the frame!  The light was poor this evening and the shutter speed was very low at 1/80s.  I reduced the aperture to F/5,6 and achieved a maximum 1/250s.  I'm always reluctant though to raise the ISO as you can always detect noice when cropping.  These shots below were the best of the batch.