Mooney

As Martin mentioned in his last blog the moon is at its largest in the sky for the last 20 years so i thought that as the skies are nice and clear over Raleigh i would take a few images, So i set my D7000 up with the 600 and 1.4x on my tripod and used a remote release
Moon rising through trees

Clear moon

Something different

Dave

New laptop plus upgrades

I mentioned that my old Dell laptop died in Japan towards the end of my trip, I managed to get a new Asus with a i7 processor-should be great but i must admit that it still feels a bit slow, I know that the best way to speed it up is to replace the hard drive with a SSH hardrive, Laptops tend to be supplied with a slow hard drive-5400rpm as opposed to7200rpm of a desktop as it makes the battery life look good, but it makes opening etc slow which is a pain, I ordered a Corsair 120gb SSD at 4.30pm on Friday and it arrived 7.20am Saturday morning-hows that for service-well done amazon, I will get the new disk copied and swapped out in the next few days and let you know my thoughts, SSD hard drives are now coming down in price and are the cheapest way of boosting the speed on your laptop or desktop, The addition of a SSD and with the USB 3 port it should really speed up my work flow when away from home-I find a laptop invaluable for my work at home and abroad so its very important to get one that works well,so hopefully that's the laptop sorted now just need to get a desktop but hold your breath on that one

Dave

Frog Blog '11 - Part 4 - A Frog's Moon

As I mentioned in my last post, they have finally started to spawn.  Well in just 24 hours we went from just the four clumps I previously mentioned to 28 clumps, beating last years total already, and they are still at it.  

It is going to be a busy year in the garden with mini frog traffic if they make it.  Which leads mean to my next tale.

Tonight is going to the brightest moon for two decades apparently according to this story.  Here in Stratford we were blessed with clear skies so I popped outside with the camera and got this image.

With the 7D, 500f4 + 1.4 on tripod, ISO 100, f9 and 1/125 if you fancy a go.  I pulled the expose back in Capture One, reduced the brightness and upped the contrast to explore some of the wonderful detail.

With this level of natural brightness, I have seen more detail from this image than many other similar type shots.

Click to see it at 800 pixels

Why last night and not tonight? - well it might not be clear tonight so worth getting it in the bank as it were.

But check it out in your area of the world and give it a crack - as it will be the brightest now for a long time to come.

So linking back to my earlier question about whether the new frogs make it.  Well it was crystal clear last night and we had another sharpish frost with temperatures down to minus 4.5 Deg C this morning when I went out at 6 AM looking for Hares locally.

Some of the spawn is exposed to the air and was a little bit crunchy when I got back, so I swilled some pond water over it to warm it up.  Fingers crossed.

Checking back to last year, they were at a similar stage on the 28th March, so we are ahead by ten days this year.  It took a further 12 days before we had swimmers, so on that basis we should be looking at the end of March before the first tadpoles emerge.

I am off on an Amphibian Surveying Workshop later today with Warwickshire Wildlife Trust to brush up on my knowledge and learn a few things.

Hope you have a good weekend

Martin

Japan trip thoughts

I have been home from Japan a couple of weeks and really lucky to have got out when i did looking at the devastation on the TV, It brings home just how fragile the Earth and those that live on it are, I dont know what would have happened if the Tsunami had hit whilst we were on the ice breaker just off of the Hokkaido coast, Its just doesnt bear thinking about, I hope that Japan gets sorted quickly but it doesn't look like its going to be that way for some time, I will return there one day and hopefully in the next year or 2 as its the best place i know for wildlife and in all that beautiful snow, I have been going through and processing some of the images from the trip and a few really stand out from the norm , i have printed some and i have to say-stunning, I had a couple of problems with the D7000 when i was out there but looking at my favourite images from the trip alot are from that camera, I still need to send it in and it will go back to Nikon next week as i am off to California next month and will need it then, The camera is capable of great image quality but i do have a nagging in the back of my head when viewing images from it that i do not seem to be getting consistency from it with images either very sharp or slightly off-reminds me of the dreaded Canon 1D MK3 in which i lost total confidence and that's one thing hat you dont want, The D3s shone as it always does-my favourite camera of all time without a doubt and when i was away if i knew that the shots were important like where we shot the white tailed eagles then the D3s was first and only choice, Now i know that the D3s is $5000+ and the D7000 is around £1200 but it should still be 100% consistent, I know that you cant expect every images to come out spot on and i except that but something just isn't right so i hope Nikon will give it a good going over and see if they can track down the cause and put my mind at rest, One things that came obvious was that manual metering is the way to go with it, One day i shot in AV and the metering was at best naff and inconsistent, Its a shame as it is a really good camera and it does show its limitations quickly, I can see why a lot of people who are not that experienced had struggled with it, I always planned to have it until the D400 comes out later this year but after all the problems in Japan i am sure that will all be put back
So here is my favourite D7000 image from the trip, I was a difficult shot as there was heavy snow and that really tests the AF, I know Pete had a few problems with the 1D Mk4 in heavy snow which i think is due to the quickness of the Canon AF system whereas the Nikon system is a tad slower to grab focus but then holds on well even in tough conditions like this, The Canon AF system worked very well with the eagles in flight and you could see the improvement over the MK3 version as when the eagles dropped out of the sky and into the tree line it kept with it and Petes eagle images are stunning to prove it

The image is full frame uncropped, The one thing i would have liked is for both cranes on the right to be side on, I do have that shot but not with the 3 on the left, I now have this printed at A3+ and its a stunner-nice and sharp, The snow adds the atmosphere and the birds position and behaviour add the interest

Dave

Oh my aching head

I am a Gemini so have another side to me-this is him

If you ever see him beware as he will track you down and fill you full of Guiness which is what happened to me last night - you have been warned
St Patricks day is a big deal here in the States but wherever you were i hope you had a good and safe one-even if your liver didnt

Dave

Frog Blog '11 - Part 3 - Spawn!!!

The very busy frogs have put out four clumps of spawn today - juding by the activity we are going to have masses of the stuff this year.

Will keep you posted

Martin

Japan update

Details of each photographic company here

Dave

Two Lifetime firsts and a UK first

On our travels this week, Jac and I popped down to Dorset for a couple of days, took a look at some the RSPB reserves and saw a few sights.  I guess it might be considered a bit of a challenge to ask your new wife to get up at 02.30 in the morning so that we can drive three hours to see a sunrise.  Well I did, she did, so we did.  I love driving at night as there is no other traffic around and you get to see quite a bit of wildlife en route.  On the journey, we saw Barn Owl, Muntjac and Roe Deer, vole, fox and my favourite of all, and it has been a good few years since I last saw one in the wild, was a Weasel.

I will share a few of the landscape/seascape images in future blogs when I have had a chance to process them.

Meanwhile, here are a few of some firsts for me.

First up is a Hooded Merganser - now not unusual for Dave, as this recent blog shows.  But most unusual for the UK, as it is a North American species.  Apparantly it arrived at RSPB Radipole about three years ago and has stayed resident ever since.  Is it wild, is it an escapee? - who knows but it was a real beauty.

It was quite at home with other Tufted Duck and Pochard.  Other great sights we had at this fabulous reserve were Water Vole, Water Rail, singing Cetti's Warblers, Sand Martins - first of the year, Reed Warblers - first of the year, two pairs of dancing Great Crested Grebes.  Sadly no Beared Tits or Bittern.  The cold winter has had a bad effect on the Beardies.

A mile or so east of Radipole Lake is RSPB Lodmoor and another lifetime first for me was seen here.

This Long Billed Dowitcher was a bit distant, so it was a bit of a crop, but fabulous to see.

Also at Lodmoor were a couple of Spoonbills, which I will bring in future posts.

The final first is a UK first for me.  I have seen this species before while in Spain, but never in the UK.   There are usually a few records each year.  The lady warden in Radipole at the RSPB said that one had been seen up at Portland Bill the previous day, and as we were heading back there in the afternooon to get some sunset shots thought we might have a look.  But it would be a needle in a haystack moment.....or so I thought.

Arriving at a parking space just after the Bird Observatory, I got out the car, caught some movement in my eye in fornt of the car parked ahead, peeked round the corner and there it was, a Hoopoe grubbing around by the kerbside, hence the visual intrusion of the road and kerb in the images. 

I grabbed my camera quickly, shot in brilliant bright horrible light, and handheld only, got off a few shots.

I had to move quickly as there were a couple of runners coming down the hill and were going to run straight by it.  I stopped them for 30 seconds, but sadly they scared the bird away from me, and I never saw it again.

I guess I will take the luck of seeing it within ten seconds of arriving.

While we were there we saw more Sand Martins and Meadow Pipits as recent migrant arrivals.  

A fabulous day in Dorset - more to come soon

Martin