Chewing the fat

Its been far too long.

Time to get out with a full EFRS compliment.  Now with added tech!!!

Andrew is now kitted out with a 2x converter giving him sniper like reach along with a battery grip making his camera look like a futuristic cannon (Canon actually).

My upgrade has been an SLR camera from Sony (more on that later) and a Tokina 400mm lens.

Fully kitted out we arrived at Chew Valley.  The usual park birds were there milling around with little cause for interest.  We had  a bit of a perimeter scan and an encounter with a warden (ahem) before stopping at Herons Green Bay.

Here we decamped with gear at the ready.

Andrew decided that my camera is not a proper SLR because its not a Canon. (Thats because its not a Single Lens Reflex Camera :¬P (Andrew)) However I think he did actually quite like it.  We chewed the fat for a while looking out for something interesting.  I took some pictures of gulls flapping about

Black Headed Gulls

Much easier with the Sony than my Fuji bridge!!!

Then some people starting feeding the birds which resulted in chaos...

I love this shot (sadly it wasnt me who took it!).  Even though its a common sight it just looks really interesting.

News of a Skua on the lake got me excited and juvenile gull on the lake was a possible siting :-)

Juvenile Lesser Black Back Gull

Andrew starting pointing is cannon (Canon) at a little brown bird...

Female Wheatear

Probably the best bird of the day!!

Then this big fella flew over croaking away. 

Raven

Still no Skua so Andrew pulled out the 2x converter and got photos from a thousand miles away.

Greenshank

Black Headed Gull

"I'll be back..." Just needs a red glowing eye. 

We didn't see the skua but at least will had some stuff to chew on.