JohnC
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« on: March 08, 2009, 06:26:52 pm » |
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On Friday I went to Slimbridge ,said to be the world's best Wetland/wildfowl centre and is located in the Severn Estuary.- It was started by Sir Peter Scott in 1948.The story is that he was a shooting man and shot a duck - he was so taken by the way the mate of this duck became distressed that he never shot another bird but embarked on a programme that is what we have today at Slimbridge. Sir Peter's wife was 90 last November. She said he returned from war with a feeling he had to do something positive for the world and decided to save threatened species. It's the only place in the world where all 6 species of Flamingo are in one place. He also saved the wonderful Hawaiian Goose from extinction. The Hawaiians were eating the eggs .He brought some birds back to Slimbridge and embarked on a breeding programme. These geese have to be the favourite bird there - they will come right up to visitors and 'ask' for food and they will try to go into peoples' pockets - seed can be bought there to feed them and the other birds. I was fortunate enough to see two kingfishers from a hide but even my 400mm end of my lens plus the 1.6 X crop AND a 1.4 extender I just about reached them so next time I'm going to try digiscoping them. I could have done with more light really to get the shutter speed up on occasions but I'll go again soon-nothing doing next week ,I see. I'm no too happy with the mandarins - not quite 100% sharp but I've decided they are reasonable enough to post. I took them at 1/200sec. I could have cropped this first one a lot more but I thought it might be better to keep some of the bank and water vidsible to give a 'context'. As ever if anyone sees how any of these might be improved please shout up..settings, croppings ,anything. Kingfishers A Coot. Jackdaw Mute Swan Mandarins Ducks (males) Flamingos Swan Goose from Mongolia, N. China and SE Russia
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« Last Edit: March 08, 2009, 06:30:55 pm by JohnC »
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martinastro
Martin Mc Kenna
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Posts: 5182
Maghera, N. Ireland
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« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2009, 11:41:22 pm » |
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Beautiful images John!!. Love the Kingfisher and Flamingo captures. Glad you had such a successful photo shoot! . I'm sure it must have been challenging to get a good image of those guys in action.
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jgs001
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« Reply #2 on: March 09, 2009, 11:55:04 am » |
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Superb set of shots John, love the Kingfishers
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John Canon 450d, EF-S 18-55 IS, 55-250 IS, Raynox DCR250 HQE5 + C80ED & Vista 80s. NexStar Skymax 102 SLT. *** My Astro Blog ***
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JohnC
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« Reply #3 on: March 09, 2009, 04:14:36 pm » |
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Thanks ,glad you enjoyed them. The kingfishers are wonderfully photogenic aren't they. I rung Jessops this morning and the bloke said they'd lost my 28mm f2.8 lens but located it this morning after I rung - it's been to two repairers (under guarantee) and won't be fixed for another two weeks, that's 6 weeks Ugh. and it's he one I use on the scope and it has the adaptor ring on it too to fit the camera to the scope. Such is life.
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JohnC
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« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2009, 10:20:12 am » |
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Forgot this one. I assume it's the same as the others but with his head up ??
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Roman White
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« Reply #5 on: March 15, 2009, 11:24:40 am » |
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Great stuff, John! I always liked kingfishers, and the mandarin ducks are fantastic!
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SkyWatcher 130/900mm EQ3, Bresser 76/700mm, 20x90 bino. and other, Olympus SP-550UZ Eclipse & comet chaser, occultation & meteor observer Poltava Astronomy Portal
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martinastro
Martin Mc Kenna
Global Moderator
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Posts: 5182
Maghera, N. Ireland
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« Reply #6 on: March 15, 2009, 02:24:58 pm » |
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John, that's a stunner!!! . What an incredible Duck.
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JohnC
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« Reply #7 on: March 15, 2009, 03:00:53 pm » |
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They're incredible aren't they. Easily the most colourful - fancy seeing them wild .
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Paul
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« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2009, 11:18:26 pm » |
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Very impressive shots John - love the Flamingoes reflected in the water!
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JohnC
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« Reply #9 on: March 15, 2009, 11:43:34 pm » |
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Thanks,Paul. It was the reflection that drew my attention - made it more interesting. I hope to get better kingfisher photos by digiscoping them when I get that 28mm f2.8 lens back from Jessops. It's got the adaptor ring on it, they lost it for 5 weeks but found it again so that's another two weeks to sort it- it will be fixed by Monday 23rd. Ugh. Under guarantee,I couldn't get infinity to try a night sky shot.
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