Wednesday 5 January 2011

Images from Boxing Day in Stratford -upon-Avon

A few blogposts ago, Boxing Day to be precise, I mentioned here that I ventured out with cameras in hand in the extremely low temperatures, particularly as the River Avon had frozen over.

So no particular story other than to share some images and a few thoughts.

So lets do the scenery first and then I will share some wildlife.  All of these were taken with the 5D and 17-40 L lens.

 Just a small wet hole for the birds

Love the irony

 Classic Stratford view of the Trinity Church (Shakespeare burial place)

 Haw frost covered Willows on the recreation ground

Frozen Avon with a view to the RSC building

And so on to the wildlife which were all taken with the 7D + 300f4 + 1.4EFTC, except for the last sad image

 Walking on water

 The mist was swirling in and out of the river - liked the atmosphere and it makes me shiver thinking back to when I took it

 Swans, Geese, Ducks, Grebes and Goosanders keeping a small patch of water from freezing

 Juvenile Swan with ice on its neck among its more mature brethren

 Preening Male Tufted Duck - I liked the tiny bit of colour on a monochrome scene

 Pochards came on to the river and went away as soon as the ice melted.  Again ice over its feathers

 A quick grab of another flight of Canada Geese, underlit by the snow on the ground.  Naturally monochrome



 I 'bumped' into this Heron while I was walking a bit further along the recreation ground as it fished in one of the bits of water that wasn't frozen.  I would liked to have got a lot more shots of this to try to get a clean shot through the vegetation, but the Herons needs were for life and death survival.  Getting photographs aren't worth compromising its life so I moved on very quickly.
 
 
Finally, I have said a few times in recent blogs of the need to feed and water the birds as the extreme conditions are a matter of life or death for them.  This image shows that even the toughest and largest birds can succumb to the conditions.  This was sadly very dead.
 
 
Martin

2 comments:

  1. like to thank you for your blog.i've been shooting since '88,recently lost interest about a year ago,found your site and rekindled the passion i use to have to get out and start shooting again(i even started my own blog to keep my progress up)thank you very much for your push and great blogs.happy new year and good luck with your fox photo..lol...thank you Troy"photofromthepoint"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Troy
    Glad that our blogs have made a difference and have you out and about with the camera gear, I think that we have all been there at some point and when things are slow and you are not getting the results that you want its difficult to keep the enjoyment up and at the end of the day we do it for enjoyment
    Dave

    ReplyDelete