Marston Moretaine Church – Environs' Bird Life

I have been in pain due to inflamed bowels for several days, and now the medications are finally having some effect, and the lack of exercise gave me cause for concern — sunshine came to my rescue, and made it possible for me to give my bowels some gentle massage whilst being distracted by the onset of Spring around me as I concentrated on capturing some of the boundless beauty that was a mere short, gentle walk by the local semi-detached church — the tower and chancel are separate entities, with a story of an annoyed God punishing the Villagers by parting the two asunder!

The one thing of extra note is that Capability Brown definitely did Not design the surrounding environment, perhaps the angry God decided the church should be hidden from casual view, by enclosing it from most angles of view beyond, with trees and bushes. This is sad, since the architecture is quite appealing, though entrances deemed in need of being sealed do not appear to have been given much love, looking very utilitarian. l have therefore made a conscious effort to take the viewer’s eye away by choosing an angle that leaves the original arch visible, but the blank wall is obscured by a bush to spare the blushes of the diocese.

I have tried to find angles that show Nature giving us a glimpse of what the coming season offers, and details that caught my eye as I gave my body a gentle work out. I used a lens that gave a general view in my initial walk, then returned later with a longer lens that allowed me to isolate  a view of what I found of interest, and get something to drink to keep me hydrated and allow my body to recover.

By pure chance I spotted the courtship of a pair of pigeons, and the longer lens on the second trip was fortuitous. Since my walk was solitary, the camera provides both company and the chance to capture the scenes I find and share them to a wider audience whilst keeping my eyes attuned to the differing challenges in capturing the colours, atmosphere and happenings around me.

Whilst I was beyond the trees, on the early trip I was surprised to see an egret fly overhead, heading South South East between two other lakes to the south, and this was what had prompted me to come out for the second excursion with the long lens. I also spotted a flock of doves that circled the buttressed tower of the church before landing. This narrative is more than a day late, since I went to Elstree to collect my repaired EOS R from Canon, and  yesterday saw the return of my Sigma 60-600mm lens so therefore I had been delayed in completing the processing of  the shots taken from both trips as I wrote this. I will now let the pictures tell their own story.

Quid pro Quo – Only Narrative–No Gallery

An amusing occurrence this morning made me chuckle; but some background beforehand…

When I moved here I had a toaster that was absolutely ideal if you purchase the standard loaves from your average supermarket; the slices simply drop in to the slots and “eh, Voila!” a minute or so later, it pops up toasted. I buy my bread from Aldi – their Malted Bloomer loaves, and they come just a fraction too wide for the toaster. Incidentally they came tops from Customers.
  Now, I enjoy the company of birds, and my regular visitors are Starlings, so in the spirit of friendliness, I pull open my fridge, undo the wrapper and pull out either one or two frozen slices and carefully cut a slither from one end, putting the offcut in the morning sunshine (if available!) and load the new-sized bread for toasting. By the time my toast is ready, it is loaded in the toast rack, and whilst that is cooling, I open the back door and stand on the threshold breaking the crusts into starling-beak-sized bits and throw them outside the window so I can watch the frenzied feeding activity that follows.

On this occasion, whilst the toasting is taking place I witness lumps of moss dropping outside the back door, so out of curiosity I venture out and look up; and there are two very energetic starlings clearing my gutters of moss, I chuckle gratefully, and mumble my thanks, as the now-startled Starlings promptly take-off to seek moss elsewhere presumably for the lining of their nests, whilst I consider that it was their way of thanking me for their daily bread – ‘Starlings Gutter-Cleaning Services!’

A few minutes later I broke bread into more manageable sized pieces and threw them out to thank my feathered friends, and though they do not read blogs, at least I have offered my thanks for their generosity. For anyone who consider starlings to be simply black, I suggest they look more closely, for their coats rival Jacob’s ‘Coat of Many Colours’! When you ever have the good fortune to see their group-flying coming up to dusk, you realise these birds really are quite special – their murmurations prior to settling to roost at night are a splendid sight to see.

Marston Moretaine – Bus Stop Birds in the Bushes

 

On returning down Station Road, having posted a letter, the cacophony of birds in the bushes by the bus stop was to tempting a sight to ignore, so my return trip was at a brisker pace as I considered grabbing my medium weight tripod putting on the gimbal head and the Sigma 150-600 Sports lens and seeing what I might catch in the sunshine.

When I returned equipped, I noticed that there were the first signs of blossom on the branches, and the chirruping was still as busy as when I had passed before, so I just hoped that my presence was not going to be the kiss of death to my chances of capturing some shots of the birds I had spotted earlier.

To give myself a good chance, I had brought along some seeds to establish I was there to show my potential subjects some generosity, and I liberally spread handfuls close to the bushes but at a good distance from where I had set down the tripod.

The bushes were a mass of fine branches, which I knew would make it tough to capture the birds without intervening branches coming between myself and the birds, but there again it was probably also the reason why the birds felt moderately secure. It was not too long before some of the birds began returning, giving me a chance to see what I could capture, there seemed to be house sparrows and starlings as far as I could tell, with the very occasional pigeon coming in, but though I was not going to take shots of them in the bush, When one settled on a nearby roof ridge, I did sneak a couple of shots since it’s arrival in the bushes had caused a few starlings to make a swift exit, leaving them bare of birds.

I stayed a while and was occasionally involved in conversation from passers by, my next door neighbour heading home to collect her children from school, and a mother and young child, who informed me the bushes were hers, so I showed her and the boy a couple of shots on the back of the camera.

Bus Stop Birds – Well, in the Nearby Bushes

After passing the bushes in Station Road on my return to base, there was so much avian activity that I felt I had to grab my camera and capture some of the activity as the light was so good, and for a change, for much of the time I was able to actually capture the singers rather than simply hear them though never catch sight of them. In part this was due to the less than full cover offered by leaves, but not totally so, because they were far less shy too.

I returned with my carbon fibre tripod complete with the gimbal head and the Tamron 150-600mm lens on the 7D MkII body and much of the time I was fortunate not to to even need the full 600mm and the passing cars of those returning from work meant there was constant traffic to provide a distraction from my camera and me. Twice men came up to see what I had captured and also one of my neighbours with her two schoolgirls said hello and looked at the camera back to see what I was taking.

The birds were hardly exotic, since most were House Sparrows, though I did catch sight of a much shyer visitor with a flash of blue on its wing which could have been a Jay, though it seemed too small, but had I blinked I’d have missed it totally! I see numerous Starlings generally in the open, but a few visited the bushes on this occasion and I practised my ‘tseeeuw’ call which seemed to make one of them keep looking around! Since they are apparently good mimics I was turning the tables as I have been trying to master their own calls. As I came away I grabbed a few more shots of tulips in some of the gardens on my way back.

I now have a few more images for greetings cards in the future.