In the early 1970's when we spent a lot of UEA free time on the Suffolk heaths and coast no-one ever dreamt that Dartford Warblers would break out of southern Britain and colonise the Suffolk heaths - but again no one would have expected Cetti's Warbler to arrive and colonise as it has; great to see a few Dartfords in the autumnal heather and bracken
saw a few Marsh Harriers in the week including this fine 2cy male at Snape; my first Marsh Harriers ever were a female and two juvs at Minsmere on June 30th 1972 when that was about the only place in Britain where you could see them; fortunately things have changed for the better since then and Marsh Harrier quickly became my obsession bird
just had a week based at Eastbridge, just a few 100m walk from Minsmere; a family gathering and so not much birding but a lot of walking in the delightful East Suffolk coastal strip with long trecks around Minsmere, Dunwich, Westelton heath and Walberswick also taking in Covehithe; a flock of c12 Woodlarks was feeding in a harvested maize field behind the cottage we rented and a Raven flew over the garden one morning; surprised to hear and see so many Marsh Tits at Minsmere and even one at Walberswick where I don't recall them in the 70's but raptors and shrikes were our main focus at that time -
There has been a lot of movement of flocks of Siskins in recent weeks but some now seem to be settling into wintering sites and the Waters' Edge Alders are holding a few early birds - this one was in a nice backdrop of autumnal colours
Having failed to get any shots of the Red-flanked Bluetail at Flamborough on Friday I went back today to give it another go and commit the day to the attempt; Initially and for long spells later the bird was in the tree tops, flycatching, and not at all photogenic but from time to time and later in the afternoon it came down low and chances of decent images were a lot better. I used the 1.4x and 2x converters with the 400DO2 and the Canon R6 and overall I was pleased with the results and the ability of the camera to find the bird in vegetation given that I pointed it in the right direction which was not always the case. I usually try to use the eye detect AF mode but sometimes start out by using the very small AF area then moving to eye detect once it has found the bird; I have the upper right hand back button set to toggle between four AF modes, smallest, single, group and eye tracking and use the shutter button to AF and shoot with - it seems to work for me - always a great bird to see and combined with the autumnal colours of the vegetation makes a nice image;
