Maximum Zoom!

Wednesday continued the spell of beautiful July weather.

On Monday we visited RSPB Dearne Valley or Old Moor. As usual the birds played hard to photograph insisting on making sure they were out of decent photographic range. Sue posted some photos on her Flickr page here. Just to be different here are a couple of pictures I managed, one not too bad but could do better and one well, shall we say at the very end of the cameras zoom range. That’s my excuse any way.

This is my not too bad one as this blue damselfly sat just long enough for me to find it in the camera viewfinder before it was off whizzing around the pond not settling again and disappearing from view.

My second picture as I said is by any standards not very good but the chatter in the hide was all about a golden plover which was hiding itself amongst a large flock of lapwings. With the camera acting as a telescope it took me a long time to pick out this individual.

 Just to give you a better idea of where this bird was below is a general shot taken from the hide.

The golden plover if indeed that’s what it is is amongst the birds that can be seen wading just off the mud bank in the centre of the picture. I've also learnt that the tiniest speck of dust or mark on the camera lenses is also magnified to enormous proportions on maximum zoom. I've still to find a good method of cleaning a camera lens to absolute perfection.

This particular golden plover must have problems with its internal clock as RSPB Old Moor is, according to the RSPB, a good place to see wheeling flocks of migrant golden plovers in autumn. This ones’ arrived a couple of months early.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett