Catch up

Havnt blogged for a couple of weeks so heres a catch up. Saw 100 Tundra Bean Geese with 1 Taiga and a Whitefronted Goose last weekend at Breydon Water, also here I spotted 260 Avocets and a female Pochard with the good numbers of Pintail, Golden plover and Ducks. On the patch a year ticked Shelduck. At work in Oulton Broad a group of Waxwings flew over and a Chiffchaff was in the tree at the office in Lowestoft.
Back on patch this weekend another Shelduck, 2 Great Skuas, plenty of Gannets and RT Divers. Best bird of the day were 6 Flyover Waxwings. Oystercatcher was back on in the clifftop field, kittiwakes and Med Gulls off the coast. CNSW hosted Bullfinch and 7 Singing Song Thrush. A Buzzard is roosting in the are everyday now too.
Today the patch was again quiet so i got bored and did a little local twitching.
North Denes had 3 Med Gull and a Colour ringed Black Headed Gull.

Over at South Pier 2 House Martins, yes that's right House Martins, earliest record for a good number of years in the area.
Moved onto Minsmere but nothing of any interest.
Iken the Cattle egret was back for its second year

Back at Pakefield 38 Waxwings had been found. Just love these little birds.

 Finished at Gorleston for this cracking 2nd cy Glaucous gull and a 2nd cy Argentatus Herring Gull.
Also 2 Adult and a 2nd cy Med Gull.

Short but sweet tonight and im sure ive missed plenty of the list.

Minsmere

Had a couple of hours at Minsmere starting with having lunch but popping to the mound to see a Drake and Red Headed Smew on the pool.
After lunch i went back for some pics but the birds had gone. Nipped to the wildlife lookout for a Great White Egret but as i arrived the 2 Smew were n the pool as was the egret but they both took off drat would have been great pics too.

I returned to the mound where the 2 Smew had now returned.

 Whilst watching the Smew the Great White Egret flew back in too.

Back at the Visitor centre feeders i took some pics of the common stuff.

Finished at Island Mere but it was very quiet. The Marsh Harriers were showing quiet well with 6 in the air at once.

Latest Digiscoping setup Panasonic GX8

Its probably time I went through my latests set up for Digiscoping. Cameras move on so fast. I loved my Leica D-lux 5 but i realised once I borrowed Danny's Panasonic GX7 that the camera was lacking mega pixels and restricting me to portrait shots only. With this new 2/3rds camera rather than full frame I could now get flight shots, crop more heavily and take multiple shots, I was restricted to 3 frame per second but the GX7 gave me at least 8 fps. After feeling very impressed with the GX7 I went the hole hog and brought myself the upgraded Panasonic GX8. The camera has a 20.3-megapixel MFT sensor compared with only 10 for the Leica. Leica Cameras for the same quality and MP are just far too expensive now and has unfortunately out priced itself from my budget range.
So my Current set up is still the Leica Apo 82 Scope but now using a custom adapter made by SRB Griturn SRB Website http://www.srbfilm.co.uk/. This adapter still slots straight onto the eyepiece of my scope.

This attaches to a Panasonic Lumix G 20mm/F1.7 Pancake Len. Because this a 20mm lens and a 2/3rd camera i have very little and almost 0 Vignetting which unlike my old Leica which had vignetting up to about 4x zoom. the difference is i no longer can zoom up on my camera but I can use the zoom eyepiece on the scope instead which works just as good if not better.

I have used very similar settings as my Leica all the settings are set to 0, i.e. sharpening, saturation etc and i always use Aperture priority, the major difference now is I only use Manual Focusing which is a lot harder but made slightly easier with focus peaking which is a system within the camera which turns the area you wish to focus on green enabling good focusing. The overall quality of the pictures are much better due to the extra mega pixels. Another bonus with this camera is the swivel screen although i do use the small viewfinder rather than the screen to find and focus on the subject now.

The only downside i have found so far is the weight of the camera, you have to be very careful you don't but excess pressure on the scope foot, mine was weak and it snapped and had to have it replace. The Swaro has an extra large footplate to stop that happening but I'm yet to source one for the Leica Scope. 

Here are some of the latest results on my flicker page. Flicker https://www.flickr.com/photos/75114240@N00/

 I was feeling a little left behind with the Leica Camera but now I feel like I'm catching up with the good digiscopers again.

White Wingers

Took the day off Friday so just had a walk to Lowestoft and North Dene's via the patch. It was very  quiet except for the 6 Med Gulls 1 Rock Pipit and 1 Purple Sandpiper. Also 15 Linnet. I decided to take a few pics of the Med gulls for 2017.

Today i nipped again to Mautby for the Adult Iceland Gull, it was rubbish as i only saw it in flight, all the gulls just wouldn't sit this side of the hill and were all hidden in a dip. Lots more Med Gulls however. At Yarmouth for lunch sat watching even more Med Gulls. Then on the way home Breydon Bridge had a nice Juv Glaucous Gull, if not a little distant. A little Egret was close though.

Good Birdin

Saturday morning on the patch was poor so nipped to Filby Broad area and dipped another Iceland gull but did get 4 Med Gulls and a proper Hooded Crow.

Had a look at Filby Broad and spotted a Black Necked and a very distant Red Necked Grebe.

Went back to try find the Iceland Gull again but still no luck. Headed over to Clippsby where 6 Bean Geese were in flight with a few Pinkfooted Geese and a single distant Common Crane was on the marsh.

Sunday I had the day out with Danny to Sculthorpe Moor, highly recommended for photograph of birds around feeders.  The Feeders were alive with Brambling, Bullfinch, Marsh tit and Nuthatch. Plus all the common stuff.

 

 

Common Stuff including Siskin and Redpoll.

6 Red Kite was a nice surprise, always nice to see.

Finally here a Fungi tick Scarlet Ink Cap.

We had a great day here and so had lunch and then headed to Weybourne for the Geese and it was nice again to see 9 Bean Geese and 2 White fronted Geese with the 400 Pinkfooted Geese.

Had a look for the Cromer Black Redstart but no sign.

Finally 135 Bewick Swan at Stalham was a great finish to the day.