Canal and Reservoir, by Tring – All Life Abounds

      I have visited these lakes over several years, and in all weathers, and they never disappoint — the most recent is no different, though the start point and the route were different. The start was at the Wendover Arm, which beyond its present end, is being restored, and the reason, I investigated this short stretch was on the off chance I might encounter kingfishers, but I was destined to be disappointed, none of those I encountered and questioned had seen any along this short stretch. 

I returned to my startpoint, and took the opposing direction, which I knew would bring me to where the canal would link with the familiar stretch that skirted the narrow neck of Marsworth Reservoir. Before that point however, I paused a while to watch a young bird head across the canal to forage food along a narrow ridge on the Heygates Mill side, and whilst that crossing was made I spotted a Grey Wagtail flit from the cover of the trees onto the towpath, and eventually I was rewarded by a few shots, before it decided I had reached the extent of my quota, but at least I was just quick enough to capture it in flight!

Along this stretch of the canal, I was again lucky enough to get a few shots of the rather fine Banded Demoiselle damselfly; I had found a spot where the patches of floating weeds, close by the Bank seemed to hold their interest, but only so far, I only spotted one occasion when one actually landed on these islands, they seemed to prefer the reeds, which made my ability to get clear shots almost impossible! Their iridescent colour is captivating.

The. Swans and Canada Geese had young families to protect, and one Swan became determined to make one Canada Goose realise, that it was not welcomed so close to its own youngster! The highlight of my day was when I was watching one of my personal favourite aquatic birds the Great Crested Grebe, this one proved to be a highly efficient angler of the underwater denizens of the lake, freshwater crawfish and smaller fishes — he made three successful dives during the time I was watching, and he obliged to coming reasonably close once he had had his fill, and began his grooming; by that time, the surface of the water was remarkably still, making the shot number 102 in the final gallery totally serene, and no doubt one day will become a greetings card image for a family member or  friend, as it is so surreal and serene.

I never tire of Grebe or Kingfisher images, but there are some others that to me are special, the Teal, and the Mandarin Duck, and now the Sigma Sports 60-600mm, especially with the 1.4x Converter bring these birds so much closer.

An Interesting Visit to Tring Reservoirs

 

On my arrival at the Car Park at Tringford Reservoir,  I noted several cars already there, so rather than immediately set up the camera and tripod, I decided to check out who was at the lakeside. It was good to have a chat and one outcome was that I was treated to a privileged trip through the woods to visit one swan on her nest. Before that, I recorded the gathering of the circular bales from the now otherwise bare field, by tractor with twin spikes. These early shots were handheld on my EOS 5D MkII using the 24-70mm lens.

I then set up the Benbo tripod and Gimbal head and mounting the Sigma 60-600mm with the 1.4x Converter on the EOS R, and headed over the road to the Marsworth Lake, where I met up with a new young family of Greylag Geese. The new Season’s youngsters were in evidence for Swans, Geese and Ducks, which is always a welcome sight, and in the sky above the Lakes were black headed Gulls, Tern and Pigeons, and on the banks were luckless anglers, one of whom had put out bread and bait to attract fish, which only attracted the gulls which demolished every last scrap as if their lives depended upon it!

Much to my regret, I saw no sign of Kingfishers and precious few Grebe, though I spotted two Herons, they were at a distance, and as if to rub sand in the wound, upon my return to my car a lone heron was in the middle of the very field the car was in, but too distant even for my lens, but I did attempt to lessen the distance but in vain, for I had barely reduced the distance between us by five feet, it took off into the distance!

Tring Spring — Reservoir’s Birds

Armed with the EOS R and Sigma Sports 60-600mm lens I head for Tring Reservoirs in anticipation of reasonable light and a plethora of aquatic birds. One thing I have learned is that I can never guarantee what I might find, and this is no exception. I could never have predicted what turned out to be the classic images of one rare bird I only caught sight of due to another visitor to the lake who mentioned it was out on the lake. I turned around, and there it was; he also mentioned that the day before its partner had been alongside, but he reckoned it was probably back at the nest.

I had chosen the lightest tripod, a carbon fibre one on this occasion so, but with the wrong head, thus on many times during the day, I took to using it as a monopod to give me the freedom of movement. This day was also one of those in which I had turned off the preview of the mirrorless body, to give me an uninterrupted view whilst shooting, as mentioned by Canon's Frankie Jim, and slowly I am gaining in confidence with this body, but there are some aspects I still have to master as I still do not have the fluidity I had with DSLRs. However, I cannot complain about the image quality, it is truly excellent; really helped by many more pixels.

My time spent at the reservoirs on this day just missed some rain at the end, but the angry Coot and the beautiful colours of the Mandarin Duck were the highlights of this trip to the lakes, making it all worthwhile.

The most telling time with this camera body will be when shooting sports such as windsurfers, powerboats and cars at Goodwood, if I am lucky enough to get there this year, and in terms of local opportunities, I need some wind and sun for me to capture those. I am still trying to learn how to get the best out of shooting confidently with the mirrorless body, so the best for that will be some decent winds.

Marsworth Reservoir with Sigma 60-600 Sports on EOS R Body

The title should really include another important piece of information — I also added the Sigma 1.4 Converter, and was amazed by how well this combination worked. So that readers of this piece can fully understand just how well this combo performed I have taken a shot from the same standpoint at the wide angle end of the lens’ range to give an indication of where I was when taking the subsequent pictures. Frame 3 shows the exact view from my position when the lens was at its shortest focal length, albeit still with the 1.4 Converter still attached! So you can see how impressive the images are; immediately below the distant view at frame 9, is an enlargement from the previous picture, showing just how much detail there is, and I was amazed! So, all praise to Canon and Sigma, for the sensor in the EOS R, and Sigma for both this excellent range telephoto and their 1.4 Extender — it makes me wonder how the 2x Converter would fare on this body? Perhaps Sigma might loan me a 2x to check it out.

At this point I shall digress; I drove down to Sigma to borrow this lens due to a really frustrating situation that was brought about by the carriers, UPS who managed for no less than the second occasion to fail to read the postcode on my package beyond the first three characters, and dropped my package into the Amazon Depot which due to Amazon’s high-handed arrogance, only acknowledges the Entire Delivery, and any package not due to Amazon, simply place it in a cage for when the carrier next collects, and does not reflect this in the tracking, so the tracking at this point reads ‘Delivered’. It is only subsequently revived once the original Courier has returned it to their Depot. This is a gross failure on Amazon and UPS’ Duty of Care, and should be utterly condemned. It completely undermines the Tracking System and since the fact that this has occurred twice to me personally, it must be only the tip of an Iceberg, and has but one result that packages lost completely are untraceable, and claims on Insurance simply compounds the losses, and increases everyone’s prices for Deliveries. This must be tackled at Government level. If anyone reading this piece has had similar issues of packages being delivered to Amazon and suffered delivery delays please tackle your MP, so we can prevent this from escalating.

Back to the narrative; I had been concerned that perhaps the Sigma Sports 60-600mm  lens might fail to focus when on this mirrorless body, but though on occasion I did have to  occasionally twist the focus ring to initiate autofocus,  I believe I may be able to use the Custom Presets on the lens to obviate that. I shall be enquiring of Sigma on that after the weekend. 

One observation I have made in relation to the EOS R is that it is rather easy to have wide range subject exposures suffer from irretrievable highlights, but whether this is due to Adobe not yet having an EOS R-specific profile. I am relying currently on a previous, but seemingly otherwise workable profile. If I have subjects with bright whites, I am taking a similar approach to how I handled transparencies in the days of film, and choosing to under-expose in such circumstances. The dynamic range of sunlit swans is such an example, it is definitely better to under-expose and then lift the shadows ‘in Post’.

I wonder how long before My lens arrives having gone ‘Up the Suwannee’ — the shoe on the lens though a little longer than some is not as long as the separate full length one which I had for the earlier 150-600mm lens, as I was loathe to put mine on this loan lens, so I await the return of the one due to arrive when UPS get it back onto its route to me.

The 60-600mm lens may be heavy, but using one lens and one body for sports and wildlife is a boon, and with the marginally lighter mirrorless full-frame body giving such image quality has certainly been worthwhile, but there is a learning curve, and  I still have a way to go to reach the ease of use to which I had become accustomed with the 5D MkIII and 7D MkII…

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.

Marsworth Reservoir – Afternoon Bird Activity

Since the weather was cooler, but still bright, I decided I would drive down to the  Tring Reservoirs, park up at Tringford on the offchance I’d catch up with the Water bailliff, Bob Menzies, then see what birdlife was to be found on either Marsworth or Startops End lakes. I saw little of interest on the latter, but the former looked promising, and so it proved as I set up my tripod and camera.

There was a young Great Crested Grebe family with both parents and four juveniles in their striking stripes of black and grey. Seemingly the male parent was fully committed to looking after the young, but the female seemed less so. Of the four youngsters, one seemed to be somewhat rebellious, often paddling away from the main group, with occasional returns for short spells. There was also a large family of Cygnets with their Swan parents.

There were more Herons around than on my earlier visits, and they seemed less worried by the closeness of humans too. There seemed fewer Gulls than normal, but way more Cormorants, presumably much to the annoyance of the local anglers. I caught no sight of Kingfishers and the area of Marsworth where they were often to be sighted was even more forlorn with fallen or felled trees filling the pools hitherto fished by the Kingfishers, which was really sad.

At one stage I walked through a tunnel of bushes to reach a secluded part of the shore favoured by anglers, to find a lone juvenile Black-Headed Gull relaxing on the foreshore, and so I approached very carefully so as not to startle it, and was able to take several shots as the bird behaved with total disinterest in my presence, which was very rewarding. This was the same relaxed attitude I had spotted amongst the Herons earlier and later. Despite my not considering the Cormorants to be beautiful birds whether on the water or in the air, I did capture some in flight which is obviously good experience. It was a quiet afternoon in School holidays on a weekday, but the few, but growing numbers of people walking the paths as the day wore on were often interested in what I was finding to capture and more than willing to involve me in conversation, so altogether, a very pleasant afternoon.

Marsworth Reservoir Visit

After a meeting in the morning, I considered getting a few wildlife pictures, and finding Brogborough Lake closed, and later learning there was a windsurfing and other watersports activities up at Rutland Water which Sam was attending, I headed south towards Tring Reservoirs. On arrival, there seemed little activity on any of the three lakes, but what there was held some interest, I spotted a couple of Grebe performing their dance, but it lacked total synchronicity, and the pair parted after a while, but later I either picked up the same pair later or a new couple, but disinterest again soon set in.

Common Tern and black-headed gulls were swooping down on possible fish on Marsworth lake, but neither were around in large numbers, and I spotted a lone Tufted Duck, and also a Raven, which was very close by, on a very exposed branch. I got several shots of a single Lesser Black-backed gull as it came in to land. There were several Greylag geese, some with young families.

Later, a young Heron flew in from further along the Grand Union Canal and landed by one of the Lock Gates, then dropped down to a ledge at the bottom of the gates, and it was not overly wary of my presence which was a bonus, s/he did not abort the initial landing and later flew into the empty lock, where it seemed very interested in some nooks in the brick wall lining, but I never saw anything it may have caught. This was definitely the highlight of my afternoon as it seemed to accept my presence, so I had enough time to consider slowing the shutter speed to blur the leaking water that surrounded it. To try to discover just what was of such great interest, I took the camera off the tripod, crossed across the farther gates and lay down to avoid spooking the bird, to get a better view and try to learn what was so intriguing.

On my return to the car I met up with the Tringford Water Bailliff, Bob Menzies and a couple of other anglers, before setting of on my return trip, purposely avoiding the M1 and other major roads as I knew they were gridlocked.

Marsworth January 2018 Reservoir Visit

After several days with almost no sun, this day held promise, but the high wind did require some thought be given to how to reduce windchill; in sheltered areas this was less of an issue and with no rain. I set off south via country roads in case trunk roads were congested or suffered from wind-related accidents, and headed towards Tring Reservoirs.

 I chose a heavy corduroy overcoat and my fingerless gloves with silk gloves beneath. I can say this was indeed a good choice, because when topped off with a woolly hat that came over my ears, I was not in the least bothered by the cold! The wind did dictate a heavy tripod, so my load could not be classed as light in weight, and necessitated changes over which shoulder I carried the assembled Gitzo-mounted, 7D MkII, with the 150-600m Sigma lens. This was as much to check nothing had worked loose as to give me a rest.

On the journey I was called back by a government-sponsored survey that seemed almost impossible to avoid, so although I concentrated on road safety, I put less effort into choosing the route I was taking and no sooner had this been completed, my phone rang again and it was the Water Bailliff for Tringford Reservoir, so I stopped in the wide entrance to a caravan park to take the call. Before leaving I spotted the Ivinghoe Beacon’s iconic shape in the distance so decided to grab some shots with it on the distant skyline before continuing, since Bob was just leaving having been there for some hours, so there was no hurry.

I had forgotten to bring my key to the parking area which was a shame, but at least there was plenty of space due probably to the cold. I assembled my gear and headed towards the canal, and found myself able to cover River and Canal Trust making their way through the locks which made interesting images of their transit. The reed beds had suffered a battering in the last few days of heavy wind, but every so often those that still stood made interesting pictures, and were a sufficient challenge to capture, as were a Pochard and Gull, and so rather than lump the three disparate groups of images into a single gallery, I have given them a gallery each, which are Canal Trust Transit, Pochard Preening, and Attempted Gull Landing Aborted.

So here are their Links – Click on either of the images to reach the relevant gallery thumbnails.

It was good to be outside taking photos again, this day at least had some sunshine!

A Quiet Afternoon at Marsworth Lake

I met another photographer as he was leaving a spot where we have both in the past caught sight of kingfishers, and he mentioned that earlier he had spotted a couple of voles and duly put out a fairly substantial quantity of food in the form of seeds for them, and a couple of different Robins had felt Christmas had arrived, but a while later when the Robin had been elsewhere finding fresh food in the form of damselflies, on of the voles returned, and I managed to get one moderately sharp shot which heads this narrative.

Very early on I managed to get a shot of a Pied Wagtail who also seemed to favour a similar diet, but my most frequent visitors were two Robins, one ringed, one not, the unhinged one is the one I meet most often, and he seemed to be constantly checking different ends of his territory, crossing the water on numerous occasions, it seemed he was performing a round robin!

It was one of the quietest spell for visiting wildlife I have encountered at Marsworth, and I suspect it has been because with little water flowing and a large surface coating of blue-green algae, it is not easy for many birds to spot the movement of small fish beneath the surface, so in my selected spot easy feeding is not possible to fishing birds are seeking sustenance elsewhere.

I moved to another more open spot and tried to capture circling Common Tern as they dived close to the reeds at the point where the dividing path between Startops End and Marsworth lakes meet the Grand Union Canal, but overall they were way to fast for me to follow with any degree of accuracy – from my observation one bird was successful on every third or fourth swoop, but the catch was small on each occasion, and was swallowed swiftly so I managed no shots with its prey. It was a t this spot' I got involved in conversation with passers by and whilst chatting with one gentleman, he spotted something drop from my tripod and I was most grateful as it was the small hook at the bottom of the tripod centre column from which to hang steadying weights, and fortunately it caught the light when I parted the grass, and I was able to retrieve it, as I had not seen it drop!

Not the most productive of sorties, but I had never seen a vole before, so that at least was a bonus.

Marsworth Visit with Andy Fox

Andy and I decided to meet up and visit Marsworth together, and despite mornings being more favourable, since he was tied up in the morning, we settled on meeting at Clophill around one o’clock to head on down.

Arriving at Tringford I parked up and we both set off towards Marsworth lake. There were numerous anglers out on both Startops End and Marsworth, and on the Grand Union Canal there were a few narrowboats going through the locks, one that was moored was unlike any other, so much so that Andy remarked that it was upside down as the superstructure seemed to be very smooth and resembled an upturned hull, made presumably in glass fibre.

We reached our destination and began setting up, and almost immediately Andy spotted a visiting kingfisher behind me, which we probably surprised and headed away from us. It was the last sighting we made for more than an hour, though we were visited by many other birds both on the water, and above us in the trees. The most frequent being blue tits, mallards, and wood pigeons. At one stage we heard a loud call, that sounded as if the caller was shouting “Nits!” which gave us a wry smile on several occasions, it turned out to be coming from what I took to be a lone mallard female, but Andy reckoned it was possibly a mallard/wigeon cross as it was speckled and differently billed.

We were also visited by the resident and beautifully groomed robin, whom I see fairly regularly, once again, in the lulls I attempted to entice to fly to my open hand for seeds, but today he made no effort. A while later we caught sight of a kingfisher doing a flyby who ducked beyond a fallen bush on the far bank. Then later still one landed in the bushes, but he was hidden from me by sunlit leaves, but in perfectly clear view to Andy as was confirmed by some three sequences of shutter firings. After that I saw another on a post beyond him, managing just two quick shots, one static and one as he flew off. Although we stayed on for some time we saw no more kingfishers, and since Andy was due for an evening out, we packed up and returned to the car, but not before I introduced Andy to some of the Tringford Anglers, and its Water Bailliff, Bob Menzies.

My visit was therefore less fruitful than my guest Andy, though enjoyable nonetheless.

Birdlife at Tring Reservoirs

I met up with the Tringford Water Bailliff, Bob Menzies and a few Anglers at the Tringford Lake, and one of their number just leaving felt there was a chance of kingfishers along the Trout Stream, so despite never seeing any in the past, I decided I would fight my way through the nettles and see whether I might have better luck – to no avail. But, I did spot a Mallard Mum and her ten-strong brood keeping a low profile for safety in this secluded stretch of stream.

I then crossed the road to the path between Startops End and Marsworth Lakes, where I met far more of interest; a Crested Grebe that had dived with success and come up with a freshwater Crayfish that he spent some time with before consuming it. Later I was to see a pair of Grebes begin their ritual dance, but there was poor synchronicity and they seemed to mutually accept they were not meant for each other, and swam off in separate directions!

On the main Lake at Marsworth, a mother Mallard seemingly had been less successful in keeping her family safe as she was in close attendance to a single chick. I twice missed the noisy takeoffs of two pairs of swans, but placid singletons were easier camera fodder. Having spent some time by the lake at Marsworth, I returned to the car and found two Bluetits flitting between the branches of a Hawthorn tree and some tall spindly grasses, so I added them to the shots I had been taking on the lakes.

Sigma 150-600mm Sports Lens Testing II

Two disparate areas of interest photographically for me are the capture of some of the skills of Windsurfing Sailors at Brogborough Lake, and the Hopeful capture of the successful dives of a Kingfisher at Marsworth Lake, one the Tring Reservoirs, so on the weekend opportunity, courtesy of Sigma Imaging UK, I borrowed the 150-600mm Sports-designated lens to check out on my Canon EOS7D MkII.

In the previous paragraph I highlighted the word ‘hopefully’ in connection with actually managing to even see a kingfisher, let alone capture one in a photo. I might equally have qualified the windsurfing activities at Brogborough, but at least I did have an idea there might be enough wind to entice some to the lake, the fact there was not enough for some serious jumping did not preclude my checking whether this heavier version of this lens range could give me the quality I seek. On both occasions the locations blessed me with very reasonable lighting levels, which meant successful shots would give me a good airing in galleries on my blog.

The lens alone is heavier than my current combined weight of camera and equivalent focal range lens, so this was a slightly negative element in my decision for considering the Sigma, but weather-proofing, quality of resolution and added features available, were higher in my considerations, because I do want the best quality I can afford within my limited budget. Both the chosen activities for the period during which I had use of the lens were absolutely the Litmus Test to gather the details that were important for my decision-making.

If only there were a scientist who could come up with an industrial process whereby molecules of Helium could be embedded within high grade aluminium without reducing the material strength so make it considerably lighter, this might enable lenses of this quality to be no heavier than those of lower build quality! 

The additional weight of this lens when carrying the camera on a tripod, with levelling head and gimbal meant that my Arca Swiss plate worked loose on my journey back to the car from the Kingfisher location, fortunately I had been checking, so no disaster befell the kit, but I voiced my concern and found Sigma do have an answer to this in the form of an Arca Swiss plate secured to the foot firmly that is way better than my own plate that is effectively adding extra leverage which was what caused the loosening. So, I feel this is an essential item to complete the kit.

Although the sequence of images was not one long burst, but a series of meaningful single and burst shots that recorded the unfolding event, I have taken them out of the overall day’s shots to stand alone, because they gave me so much pleasure, and although some are almost duplicates, it meant I could fill a natural grid without any blanks.

An Early Start for Marsworth Reservoir

Checking the weather forecast suggested a bright day, but either I did not see a mention of heavy mist, or there was not one, for I set off in a very thick mist that in parts was better described as fog, making winding country roads without white edge lines particularly hazardous in the early hours, and having had to scrape my windscreen of frost, my dashboard reminded me unnecessarily the potential for ice!

My route had many junctions and I almost missed one as its landmark pub was obscured in the mist. I arrived at Tringford with darkness still prevailing, I parked up and put together my Giottos tripod and  Lensmaster gimbal head, and had already put the Canon 100-400mm lens with 1.4 converter, and slung my 5D MkIII with 35mm f/1.4 around my neck and set off along the path that lay between Startops End lake and Marsworth lake. The Canada Geese or Graylags were hooting and Gulls swooped in and out of the mist over the waters of Marsworth, as I headed along the Grand Union Canal towards the reed beds.

 I made my way carefully and quietly down the bank to avoid creating a disturbance and began setting up the tripod, I had nearly completed when a quiet voice behind me said he had waited for me to finish before alerting me to his presence in case in fright I was pitched into the water! I don't think he realised how true was his statement, for had he spoken at normal volume, I would have jumped clean out of my skin! He introduced himself as Andy, and much later as Andy Brown, and I learned we shared a mutual friend in Mervyn.

My eyes have started to degrade more rapidly of late and this has resulted in my having two very different prescriptions for distance and close work, and today for the first time since my latest glasses, I found that the pair I had chosen which allowed me to view the review screen well were very far from being useful in spotting kingfishers on the far bank, and on this occasion I was indebted to Andy who was clearly able to spot them. I think I am going to have to bring both pairs with me in future, which was not the case before.

As the light slowly improved we both began shooting at high ISO and fairly wide apertures, and it soon became apparent that my decision to check out using a converter on the 100-400mm lens was far less effective than using my 150-600mm lens on its own, so that experiment was a failure! The main reason being that in this low light auto focus was both very slow, and sometimes simply not happening. The advancing light certainly improved the quality of images I was able to get – I was bitterly disappointed with the vast majority of the early shots, and only rising to barely acceptable towards late morning. Another experiment was using the onboard flash of the 7D MkII, again way under-powered to work efficiently, but it did seem to have a beneficial side effect, in that it seemed to make the kingfisher show interest in us!

After Andy had headed off to work for a Conference call, a pair of wood pigeons began courting, and since I had built up an interesting sequence, I have put these in a separate gallery. (click the underlined text above to link to the gallery).

I stayed for an hour or so longer, because it became apparent that the kingfishers had had their fill for our neck of the woods, so I set off back to the car, but along the way I did stop occasionally to record a few landscape shots and also got involved in a few conversations with others walking the footpath.

Birds in Two ‘Mars’ Names – Marston Moretaine and Marsworth

The Starlings are an abundant species around Marston Moretaine; at a distance they seem a boring black, but close to, and especially in sunlight they are a magical mixture of iridescent blues and greens and they are often to be heard whistling amongst a gathering on a nearby telegraph pole; their call a Tseeuw, that I have been mimicking in the hope I can attract them closer in order to capture their true colours, and on this Sunday morning in bright sunshine I lured them in with a mixture of toast crumbs from the toaster, seeds and bread I have to cut off in order for my Bloomer bread slices to fit the new toaster (why did I buy a toaster that did not accept my favourite bread loaves? Answer – because an even browning was more important, and cutting a sliver from each frozen slice meant I had a fresh source of feed for the birds – QED!)

Reckoning that English Weather Forecasts are notorious for unpredictability, I thought I’d take a chance and head for Tring Reservoirs to see how the birdlife there was faring since it was bright from the start and the scheduled later rain might not materialise. Unfortunately I somehow managed to dislodge something in my back and was in considerable pain, but reckoned that no gain without pain, so persevered and headed south cross-country avoiding the M1. I am fortunate in being allowed to park my car with the local anglers and met the Water Bailiff and some of them briefly before heading away from Tringford to Marsworth Lake. It was tough on my back, but the weather was still so good it would have been a shame not to make the attempt and suffer in silence.

I probably spent at least four hours, and all of it standing as I decided on a different spot for a change and sitting was not an option; the pain did not let up and I did have to keep transferring my weight around, but it was manageable and I found that air was alive with all manner of birdcalls, most of which I was unable to place, and certainly most of those calling were never seen. I reckon overall I was lucky in what I managed to capture, even though some birds never succumbed to my trigger finger, even though I had tracked assiduously through the undergrowth – in that category were a Dunnock and Wren, and there were overflying herons and Greylag geese.

However even the pigeon gave me couple of interesting shots as did a robin gathering what I took to be food for its young and he or she was brave because it was straying into the territory of the resident Robin that I regularly spot and sometimes feed (and on a disappointing day, talk to and implore he ask a Kingfisher or Woodpecker to call by!)

To capture a flirting Bluetit pair cavorting, a Long-tailed Tit a Grebe or two and a Kingfisher, I felt was well worth the visit, and I was warm!

Marsworth Steam Rally

Speaking to Bob Menzies in the week I learned that Marsworth was holding a Steam Traction Rally beyond Startops End Reservoir, on the Sunday, so I met up with Bob, and we walked around Marsworth lake chatting. We both watched from reservoir rim, then Bob walked back and I entered the field.

To begin with, the sun had gone in, but for a short while during my visit, the sun did come out, I took a look around and even managed a short spell on Kevin Flint’s engine, as my namesake Rod, the MC,  had been having little luck getting the public to take a ride around the arena.

Although I was careful to avoid getting my clothes dirty, my hands did need a thorough clean, but that was remedied by a visit to the temporary loos at the edge of the field.

There was a surprising number of visitors attending and in addition to the traction engines there was a display of various ancient tractors and a bouncy castle for the kids, and although I left when it started spitting with rain, in fact the weather held off well and it seemed the crowd thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

I went back to Tringford reservoir after an hour or so and chatted some more before the cold wind got the better of me, and I returned home.