Day 5 at the hide and the results

Went up to the hide today left around 07.30. I decided to do this as the weather forecast is changing by the hour. I could not risk not having good weather next week so I went up today. Not sunny today although nuthatch again very active and very vocal. The woodpecker is getting more confident today and is coming closer, however he is spooked by the noise of the camera going off. If only I had the Nikon D3s that has a silent shutter setting - maybe I would get him.

Tomorrow I pick up the 1D Mk iV for trial. I can’t wait to try it as I have heard good reviews about it, and photographer Danny Green says it is really worth owning. I will test it on all isos to see what the noise is like. I wonder how it compares to the Nikon D3s. Tests will tell me.

It will be interesting to see how it reacts, as being able to use higher isos will give me higher shutter speeds hopefully giving me sharper images.

Surprising results today. New addition to the station very successful, nuthatch coming to it regularly he is rather quick though need to get the aperture right so that the image is sharp. Also need to prefocus on it so that I do not miss a shot.

Woodpecker got really close today managed to shoot two frames off before it flew off. Quite happy with the shots though as the one is different to what you normally see.

Flashes deployed today, not happy with what results it is giving now. Now that the light is good it seems too harsh with flash.

Fencing of the hide and why

Back up at the farm today to check the feeders, and with the aim to put the hide there on a semi permanent basis. This was achieved with a bit of effort and help from my wife. I was quite happy with how it turned out as there is room, if needed to put another hide there. The surprise of the day was to see the Goshawk fly over. I knew there were a couple in the area but had not seen one for about a year. The good things was Helen saw it too.

Feeders busy after I had refilled them and after we had stopped making noise.

Went for a walk after to see what else was about, nothing much disturbing however had a chat with Martin and his dad and they gave me a few locations to look for other wildlife on the farm. Also they have said that they have seen some of the young rabbits about. I still need to be there at first light either in the hide or on the farm looking for other wildlife.

Did notice that the light was staying on the feeders for longer today as before it had gone by 3 o'clock. This is good as it extends my time in the hide.

The next 2 weeks are going to be vital in what I see and are going to need a lot of time up on the farm to get more images to bolster my portfolio.

With the good weather, hopefully this will happen.

I have been in contact also with another friend who owns a couple of farms in Brecon to see what he has around there. The more the merrier in my opinion.

Day 2 at the hide and the results

A full day in the hide today, prepared my equipment last night to make sure that all batteries were charged and that the memory cards were empty.

Set off early-ish however would have like to have been there at first light. Need to speak to Martin to see if I can stay one night so that I can do this. The other thing is, if I am in the hide before first light it would be interesting to see what comes in as I would have not disturbed them at all. Every time so far I have visisted the hide the woodpecker has been there as well. This I want to capture for this project.

I borrowed my Father in-law's 500 f4 as I thought it would give me more flexibility and allow me to get closer to the subject. With this in mind I decided to take the following to site:

2 x cameras

2 x tripods and Wimberley heads

500 f4 and 300 2.8 and 1.4 and 2 x converter.

Initially I set the two cameras up but found that I then had a limited field of view and also I could not pan the camera how I wanted to. I decided that I would concentrate on the use of one lens at one time but have the other one ready to hand. The light today was excellent, I was so glad that I set up this other perch as when the light had fallen away from the other branches, it was still on this perch at the front. It was actually constantly on it all day. When I filled the feeders, I had also on the previous visit bored some holes into the log so that I could stash some food in it.

I think I need to maybe put some peanut butter somewhere as this will then draw in the woodpecker as from previous experience they really like it.

One thing I did notice was that the front perch was too close for the 500 f4. I worked out that by moving the hide back about 1ft that I could then use the 500 all the time.

Results of the day

The results were actually quite surprising and I was very pleased with the days results. I found that at times using the flash really worked as fill in flash when the light dropped off. I need to experiment with the positioning of the flash guns to accentuate the bird. Rik has also said for me to think about blowing them up really big using genuine fractals. I will look into this. The best image of the day was however taken using natural light with the 500 . It is a blue tit on my log with a vey muted background. If the rest of the images are as good as this I will be very happy.

Major Project The Farm and inital findings

Today's Antics.

Farm Wildlife Day 1

Today I decided to start the farm project, this I wanted to do as before when I have been on the farm. I decided that I would establish some feed stations on the farm to see what birds come to them. The location of the farm I will not divulge on here, however it is near a RSPB reserve so there should be a lot of wildlife in the area.

I decided that I would establish them in the wood next to the barns. I decided to do some scouting about around the rest of the farm, whilst doing this I found a tree that had been pecked by a Woodpecker. Excellent I thought, it was ideal for establishing a feeding station and a hide, the problem was that there are someone else's horses in there so I had to abandon that one. This will keep for the future.

I went into the ash tree plantation and found a few ideal places to establish a hide. The main concern for me was light. At the end the plantation was a clearing which was ideal. I decided to establish my first feeding station here. There were plenty of very photogenic perches there and there were many that I could put into place as well.

Further in to the wood I started to see some tracks. I think from a fox as the grass was not disturbed. Following these tracks led me to a bank which I climbed and found another tree that had been pecked by a Woodpecker. As there was a clearing there I decided to establish the second feeding station here.

After establishing them I decided to look around the farm to see what other wildlife was about that day.

I found a small roost of about 100 starlings that were flying oblivious to my presence.

I saw two Red Kites

On the edge of the boundary next to the forestry plantation, I discovered the following wildlife:

Long tailed tits

Goldcrest or a firecrest

Tree creeper

I saw a potential site on the edge of the reeds to place a hide to get shots of birds of prey with some feeding done.

And this is only day one.

I will leave the feeding stations for about 4 days and then go to check them, if they are not touched I will think about moving them up to the top of the farm.

Point to note:

After watching Simon King's programme on BBC2 about wildlife in Scotland, he said when establishing a hide two of you should go there and then one leave. He said the birds will be none the wiser as long as you are quiet.