On arriving I saw a flock of around 15 Golden plover feeding in the wet fields and trained my bins on them as I've not really seen these lovely waders before. After a while they flew a short distance away and I returned to the business of deciding what the predominant habitat was. Just then there was a "poff" sound like someone dropping a cushion to the floor and pandemonium among the plovers. A female Sparrowhawk had arrived as if from nowhere and had a firm grip on a shrieking plover on the ground. It seemed that the clever raptor had capitalised on the plovers' wariness of my approach and seized its opportunity while the flock was distracted. She glared back at me with a beady yellow eye. A fantastic thing to have had the privelege to see.The sparrowhawk took its kill to a nearby clump of reeds and had gone by the time my route took me past the spot.
Later in the day I was able to watch a stoat hunting rabbits and I also had the pleasure of meeting this beast.
Nice horse!
ReplyDeleteIn reply to your comments on my blog (http://bogbumper.blogspot.com/2006/03/seeing-some-birds.html#comments), I think top-end scopes probably do make a difference to digiscoped photos.
Having ED-type (or apochromatic) glass certainly helps as you get less 'colour-fringing' which is most apparent around the edges of dark things on pale backgrounds. If you're prepared to put in a bit of Photoshop work, you can get rid of some fringing, but it's not ideal.
I'm finding the extra 15mm of lens diameter makes quite a difference, especially in less-than-perfect light. The Iceland Gull shot wouldn't have been possible with the smaller scope (and I brightened it considerably on the computer).
The big scope weighs quite a bit more than the small one, so I suppose it's all down to a compromise between portability and getting more light into the camera.