Alpine Swifts Lincolnshire

Capitulated and went to Chapel Six Marshes for the two Alpine Swifts - performed very well early but by mid morning drifted off high south and were never very photographable after the early period - all Canon R62 and Canon 400DO2 with 1.4x converter 

Alpine Swifts

swifts are always a test of camera auto focus abilities -- and I like swifts -- expecting it to be hot I made the decision not to take the 2x converter with me and stuck with the 400 DO2 and the 1.4x mark 3 with the Canon 5D4 -- the 5D4 allows generous cropping and has superb image quality  -- I have finally found my ideal camera lens set up after spending far too much on gear in the last few years --  on occasions I took the 1.4x converter off and worked just witht he 400 and that is something I should do more often --

Alpine Swifts

Crag Martin and Alpine Swift

Alpine Swift ticks all the boxes

not an early or particularly auspicious start this morning with a lot of cloud around the patch so I set off for a long walk armed with just the 300 2.8 and 2x converter, reducing walking weight; leaving Waters' Edge a strangely long winged and languid swift was hawking over the tilery but was always into the sun; although I was pretty certain it was an Alpine it took ten minutes to get a decent view of the underparts; then it came in as a new bird for the local patch (total 251) Scunny area (280) a new species for Lincs (345) and a new bird for my self found Britain and Ireland list currently 324 species; it showed well until 12:30 when it started to drift off high and although it reappeared briefly at 13:15 it then went really high and drifted off towards the Humber Bridge as the air warmed up and the insects climbed -- so a great day and after 41 years of searching through 1000's of swifts the Alpine eventually presented itself to me without any effort -- sods law

melba 2

all shots hand held with 300 2.8 and some with 2x converter (the 1.4 was at home!)

No Pallid's here yet but only a matter of time before we complete the set