One of the most attractive birds....

Starling - Enderby

The starling is one of the most misunderstood and disliked birds in Britain. They are usually seen as nosey and messy - both which is true. However, if you take the time just to look at the bird you would see that it is beautifully marked bird with a fascinating character (I know this is anthropomorphising a bird but if we didn't do this then we wouldn't bird watch as it would take all the passion out of the subject and becomes just a collection of statistics).

Some Homework...

Starling

I've been feeling a bit flat since coming back from Pembrokeshire and so I decided to just get out into the garden and see what I could capture. I had mentioned earlier that I was thinking about using this as the subject for my ARPS submission. Again I wasn't disappointed. At the moment the garden is full of this years young. They really are engaging to watch but there is a sombre side to this. I know that most will not will see the end of the week let alone the end of the year. The area is inundated with cats - the most prolific predator of young birds. There is also a sparrowhawk that visits the area on a regular basis. On top of this they have to learn to fend for themselves. The odds are not good but some of the brood will survive and seeing as their parents will be having two maybe three broods in a season the attrition is not too serous. If you wish to view all the birds then click here:

So much for the plan....

House Sparrow in the Rain

Starling on a feeder

Dunnock

Female Blackbird

So I was going to go out and takes some landscape images.   It was going to be a nice change of pace, something different, something fresh.   Well it didn't happen.   instead I decided to test the 1D with the 2 x converter to see what sort of images it may produce.  Well I was blown away.  Period.   I used to think that the 40D worked well with the 2x converter.  Not anymore, the 1D is simply a brilliant camera.

All these photographs were captured in my garden around about lunch time this morning.  As you can see it was raining and the light was patchy.  I had to shoot at 640 ISO, something I don't like doing with the 40D as the results can get very soft but with the 1D there was not a trace of softness.  The images were sharp and well saturated and are able to deal with cropping very well.  In short they are outstanding.

This does make the question of the 40D a whole more complicated.   With the 40D you do get an extra amount of magnification (I know this is not strictly true but it will suffice for this post) which might be useful at places such as Bempton.  However, the final image is nothing like the quality of the 1D, not surprising since one is about 3 times the price as the other and the fast FPS can be really useful when taking nature shots.  In short do I go the whole hog and get another 1D?   I think I know the answer and I suspect reading you may too.

Goldfinch

Starlings