Monday, October 05, 2009

Brief Norfolk Moments

North Norfolk is a bird watchers paradise, especially during migration time as the bulge of land jutting out into the North Sea intercepts birds heading south down the east side of the country. As a result many scarce and rare birds can often be found there in Autumn. Before heading off on my holiday I decided to set my mobile for scarce and rare text alerts in Norfolk. That was a mistake as it was going off every half hour during my week stay, I couldn't turn it off as I had no access to a computer and it was made even more frustrating as I had no time to pursue them. This was a holiday and not a photography trip so my time with the camera was very limited, however I still managed a couple of photos whilst there :)

I found a curlew creeping along a tidal channel at Brancaster.
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Its a muddy business poking around in estuary silt searching for crabs to eat and the bird frequently dropped back to the waters edge to wash it bill.
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I popped out early one morning to Salthouses and found a couple of birds to photograph. This Egyptian goose was part of a group grazing close to the coastal road. This is a species that is restricted mainly to the south and east and so not a bird that can be found back at home.
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I also came across this drake Gadwall in a reed lined area which provided an interesting back drop.
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Final bird of the trip was a lonely Dunlin that I found in a channel whilst searching the shallow beach pools at Salthouses for waders.
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Unfortunately just as I got into a nice low angle the sun disappeared. However, this does show nicely the difference some good light can make to the appearance of a bird.
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3 comments:

Kensington luxury: said...

Great picture did you use actions shots, and did you use a long lens, did you taker this close up? How do you get so close?

holdingmoments said...

Beautiful set Richard.
I can imagine the frustration of the alert going off, and having to ignore it. lol
That shot of the Gadwall is superb. Feels like you can reach out and touch it.

Rich Steel said...

Thnaks for the comments. In answer to your questions Kensington. Most of my photos are taken with the Canon 500mm F4 lens occasionally combined with a 1.4 teleconvertor. The photos are taken as close as I can get to the bird with it still feeling comfortable, as the welfare of the subject is always the prime consideration. You will notice on the second to last dunlin photo that the bird is still feeding which is always a good sign it remains happy with my presence. As in how do you get close to birds well that it a topic which could fill a book in itself.

Cheers

Rich

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