I arrived at Strumpshaw following a sunrise shoot at Overstrand.
I was tempted to skip it but my thinking was that if I don’t visit, I will never get anything.
I sat down outside reception hide and observed a kingfisher darting between the island and the large area of reeds on the right hand side.
About half an hour later, it landed on a branch but quite a distance away.
I stayed put as I figured if I move, it’s bound to fly closer.
It flew back to a post further away, then right into the reeds, then back over to the island.
It then flew back to that post the suddenly across to a closer post, diving into the water en-route.
I was ‘spraying and praying’ my shots in a panic and grabbed something of a snapshot below.
Then the kingfisher perched on the post nearest my seat, and I tried to stay calm and grab it.
This is not by any means completed my bucket list of nabbing an ‘excellent’ kingfisher shot, but it’s a good one.
To get top quality shots of these birds, other than good luck and fortune, you need… a non-cropped shot captured with a decent lens, optimum aperture, fast shutter speed and an agreeable ISO to keep noise low.
It was a lovely morning on the fen and the morning sun was surprisingly soft and almost akin to a golden hour light.
I thought I would wander round to fen hide.
On my way round to that hide, I could see a photographer in camo gear with a tripod further up the path near the river end, so decided to walk up there and see what was going on.
When I got to his position, I could see a group of photographers, all in camo gear, and this guy told me they’d been there since 07:30 photographing bearded tits.
The bearded reedling (Panurus biarmicus) is a small, long-tailed passerine bird found in reed beds near water in the temperate zone of Eurasia. It is frequently known as the bearded tit or the bearded parrotbill, as it historically was believed to be closely related to tits or parrotbills.
Excited at the prospect of grabbing such a shot, I waddled up alongside the group to see if I could grab a shot.
I enjoyed listening to their banter, they obviously knew each other, and were frequent visitors. Within half an hour, and with a light breeze wafting in, they declared that the bearded tits were gone.
At this point, I could’ve followed the guys back to reception but with a cup flask of tea from Ronald still warm, and a glorious morning, I decided to sit on the bench and chill.
It was deathly quiet, and indeed there were no signs of the birds. However, around twenty minutes later, and I saw a group of three bearded tits fly into the reeds.
I stood up slowly and starting some opportunistic shots.
This was exciting given that those chaps had earlier declared the birds had gone home for the day!
I concentrated on that section of the reed and one of the birds crawled up a reed to pose for me.
With this bird staying fairly static, I had enough time to choose optimum settings, and without crop mode activated, I knew I could get 45 megapixels for later cropping.
Below is the fully cropped, edited and enhanced image.
I had fired off lots of shots and was excited at the prospect of not only capturing this amazing bird, but also to have a useable kingfisher shot in the bag too.
I stayed a bit longer to snag this shot of the bird looking directly at me.
It was not long after this, the birds flew off and it did go quiet.
I had finished my cup of tea and a breeze was blowing now such that the reeds were starting to sway. This is when these birds are unlikely to return.
Tired from the early start seven hours earlier getting up for the sunrise at Overstrand, I was spent.
One final shot on my way back was of these two cows.
It really was a wrap.
Home and a couple of hours snoozing and I was uploading the images for later sifting and shortlisting.
My plan to push myself to visit Strumpshaw on the off chance, despite tiredness and plenty of reasons to go straight home had worked, and I was excited and looking forward to reviewing my images.
Onwards and upwards…