Monday 25 August 2014

AN EARLY VISIT TO MARSH LANE.


Last Saturday I went over to Marsh Lane very early.Well very early for me.I was in position just a little way down the path to the CP hide by 7.30 AM ready to have another go at getting some decent shots of Hirundines.

It was a cracking morning with the sun shining and very few clouds about.The trouble was  there were no Hirundines to be seen  so I thought I'd have a look in the CP hide.Scanning the islands looking for something decent I was put off by the fact that there were loads of Greylag Geese everywhere leaving little room for anything else so I quickly gave up.This turned out to be another in a long list of birding errors I've made over the years.

Back out on the path outside the hide I was pretty pleased when quite soon I managed a shot of a juvenile  Peregrine that flew across the CP pool unfortunately in the distance and away from me.It was then that Paul Johnson (who had been there since dawn) appeared and told me that the Peregrine had been on one of the islands on the CP pool eating a kill at the same time I was in the hide.Oh Dear ! ! Never spotted it.Not got a shot of one on the ground feeding.Damnation ! ! 





By this time a few Hirundines had turned up and I spent the next 90 minutes trying to get some decent flight shots.Didn't do too bad.














Didn't do as well as last time getting in flight feeding shots only getting this lone shot and that at distance.Great to watch though.




Concentrating on trying to get the flight shots I didn't notice that some Sand Martins had landed on the barbed wire fencing only 6m away.Changing the settings on the camera as quickly as possible I managed to rattle off some shots but I needn't have panicked because they hung around for quite a while and didn't seem at all phased by an ancient photographer being so close.What cracking birds they are.












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