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geniculata wrote:....lovely to see one of our commoner birds captured in such an unusual pose! gary.

Thanks - It certainly ignored me long enough for a couple of shots, even tho' I was only 12ft away! (I think it was dozing...)
Shows why you should ALWAYS carry your camera
N
PS. Nice grebes, Eccles...!

eccles wrote:I presume that's a juvenile, so the chances are, remembering last 'summer' it's never seen the sun before and it's making the most of it.

Yesterday morning at Chew Valley Lake, these great crested grebes gave watchers a splendid treat by performing their mating dance relatively close to Herriots Bridge, and the light was nice too.
Sony A700 + Sony 500mm AF Reflex

The highest compliment I can make about your photo, Mike, is that I wish I'd taken it! Superb shot. Was this part of the courtship ritual?

Cheers,

- Pete

Thanks Pete. Yes it was part of the courtship ritual. They also dived down and presented each other with bits of weed.

Super Great Crested Grebe shot. They are always right out in the middle of the lake whenever I see them!

Very nice Grebes, the right place the right time. Practising your advice. I'm quite pleased. Shirley

Caught up with one of my favourite Birds on Thursday, and even tho the pics don't show it, it was an obliging individual. Not that common round my end, so nice to eventually get good views of one.

Cheers.

What's this bird? I've never seen one of these do this. First sign of sun and British birds sunbathe.

Hi Denise,
Looks like a Wren.
Neil

Spot on Neil. Funny little thing.
Denise

A Wren, looks like a young bird, falen out of the nest?

sahikmet wrote:A Wren, looks like a young bird, falen out of the nest?

No, it was quite healthy and flew away pronto when I got too close.

But on a sad note, my Robin nest was predated early this morning. I found one chick (which died in my hand) in the middle of the lawn and the nest is empty now. This chick would have been on the wing in a few days. It was fully feathered with just the flight feathers half in pin. I'm thinking maybe a Magpie. There is no sign of the other chicks and the parents have been in the garden all day so they didn't fledge.

Your Wren was probably sun bathing and making sure all of it's body was warmed up / dried off, or letting ants walk onto it and feed on ticks, etc on it's body.

Cheers,

Nice Wren Denise, your birds are so advanced than these up here, they have only just finished building their nests. This female Blackbird are in a great hurry to-day only managed one photo. Shirley

nick patel wrote:Your Wren was probably sun bathing and making sure all of it's body was warmed up

Hi,
the Wren is an adult dust bathing, they maintain their feathers by ridding them of excess oils and dead skin which stick to the dust.
Starlings can be seen lying in ants they use the formic acid to help rid themselves of parasites,
nice Blackbird pic Shirley.
Shaun.

Thanks Shaun and Nick,
Very well put, and it had been dust bathing, but in the first photo you can clearly see the preen gland exposed (at the base of the tail)
I was wondering if perhaps this bird was warming up to a good oiling (waterproofing) session.
I have seen countless times, Robins, Blackbirds and Sparrows do this, but I have never seen a Wren do it. It was really funny. Such a small bird playing statues!
Yes, and there were ants running over it.

Denise

Hi Denise,
No never seen a Wren doing it either.My brother has got some remarkable old photos of a Magpie preening a Buzzard while the Buzzard was quite content to let him.
Shaun

Getting the hang of the 500mm reflex. Shirley

Nice robin, Shirley, but let down a bit by the reflex's funny background. There's not a lot you can do about that, and unfortunately it's difficult to know how it'll turn out until you've taken the shot. I think it's a small penalty for such a fun lens to use though, and you can take some great shots with it. The goldfinch you took on Friday is really nice.

Yeah, I like the robin, but thats the problem with lenses like that, the background. I thought about getting a lens like that, but seeing the background when some pics are taken, I decided against it, but that lens does get a great shot of the subject itself.

Take care when considering mirror lenses. The Sony/Minolta is optically very good, and has the big advantage of being autofocus, but the ones called Phoenix or Sirius or other made-up name selling for less than £200 are dreadful. I would imagine Sigma mirrors are ok but manually focussing a mirror is very finicky and of little use except for static subjects.