Northern Kingfishers

It's always nice to photograph in a new location, especially one that somebody has already prepared for you. Last week I visited Mark Hughes’ Kingfisher hide near Leeds. Mark has a very good set-up on private land by a small lake. Here, he’s constructed a large wooden hide for photographing the birds against the natural backgrounds. There are a variety of perches to lure the Kingfishers which can easily be changed thanks to a clever slot system that he’s devised. There are alternative perch sites to cater for 300mm and 500mm lenses.

The birds visited fairly regularly throughout the day that I was there, roughly once an hour, so there were plenty of photo opportunities. It was a pretty good day, photographically speaking, It seems that Mark also has a set-up for shooting diving birds which he  hires out in the spring (www. markhughesimages.net) - I'll let you know what that's like after I've tried it.

Image: Canon EOS 1DX, EF500mm f/4L IS II, +1.4x III 1/400th sec @ f/5.6, ISO 500, tripod with Uniqball head, hide

Image: Canon EOS 1DX, EF500mm f/4L IS II + 1.4x III, 1/800th sec @ f/7.1, ISO 800, tripod with Uniqball head, hide

Canon EOS 1DX, EF500mm f/4L IS II  1/400th sec @ f/75.6, ISO 3200, tripod, hide

Canon EOS 1DX, EF500mm f/4L IS II + 1.4x III, 1/1000th sec @ f/7.1, ISO 2000, tripod with Uniqball head, hide

Vole-ing update

21 Nov, 2014

Earlier this week I returned to the Water Vole site that I use. I was a little dismayed to find that the stream had flooded. Unfortunately, it appeared that most of the voles had moved on - I saw only four during the day. Hopefully, they'll return when the waters subside.

(Image: Canon EOS 1DX, EF500mm f/4L IS II + 1.4x III, 1/250 sec @ f/7.1, ISO 4000, tripod)

(Image: Canon EOS 1DX, EF500mm f/4L IS II, 1/4 @ 1/160 sec, ISO 1000, tripod)