EOS R at Bitterly Cold Marsworth

              I set off in sunshine and it was not desperately cold, but the sun soon hid behind cloud cover and the wind strengthened, and I began to wonder about the wisdom of continuing, but I wanted to attempt to take the EOS R body along to venues that will be where this body is put to work, even though reservoirs at this time of year are not at their most interesting.
              On this occasion I certainly was not going to lug around a really sturdy tripod and so settled upon the carbon fibre Silk Road tripod, since all my others are metal and weighty. Even as I crossed the road from Tringford Lake, the sleet and rain began, but having travelled this distance I was not going to wimp out. Having come out of the cover of the trees, the wind had ratcheted up and it was very unpleasant and several f-stops duller, meaning the likelihood of noise intruding on the quality of the images was now a lot higher, so the ISO speed would correspondingly rise and the depth of field would narrow, especially so as I was using the Canon 100-400mm lens and, adding the Sigma 1.4x Converter to give me the throw. This definitely real world testing, or perhaps I could describe it as typically British Weather! The reason for this lens selection was that in order to make the new full-frame Mirrorless Canon affordable, whilst also purchasing Sigma's new 60-600mm Sports lens, sadly my 150-600mm had to go – very bad timing as there are no 60-600s in the Country presently!
              Once I was on the pathway between Marsworth and Startops lakes, I took shelter from the wind and rain, as countless groups of people were heading in my direction at a brisk pace heading for home! Each one with whom I spoke lamenting the the same message "It was sunny when we first arrived!" I should add not everyone was heading away, or, perhaps their homes lay in the opposite direction?!
              After a short stay the sleet and rain thinned, and I ventured further, but soon took shelter  at the hide that faces Startops, though for the greater time I was there, I faced the Marsworth lake, as I had been visited by a Robin and a Dunnock, perhaps lured by my putting several small piles of seeds atop the fence posts, though for the most part both went for the more meagre scatterings I put on the ground. I was a little surprised that both considered this area home turf as Robins are notoriously territorial. I moved further along the path towards the T-Junction where the options of which lake's shoreline you walk, where there several cygnets and numerous Coots and Mallard ducks, and though I spotted a lone juvenile Grebe, it was too distant for my lens especially with such unfavourable light. There were also swooping Gulls, and Cormorants, and I returned to the hide and saw the Robin again, but after a fruitless further hour, I decided to admit defeat and returned to the car and headed home.
              I had learned that Autofocus worked poorly in these conditions, whether this was due to poor settings on my part, or the very low temperatures due to the biting wind, I was unsure, but nine-tenths of the shots that appear in the gallery were obtained manually, and my success rate was low! My hands and reflexes do not perform well when frozen; I did not suffer frostbite, but they took a long while to warm up on the journey back.
              I do hope I do not have to wait too long for Sigma to receive another batch of 60-600mm lenses! Lastly, once again I have done several pairs of images where the first is approximately full frame, and the second is a crop from the same image to indicate the quality obtained. ISO speed ranged from 5000˚ to 12,800˚ ISO, to give some indication of how low the light was, and most were shot at an aperture of f/7.1.