[PIC_THREAD] Wildlife, Animals, Birds, Zoo

Soldato
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Nice image with good background separation. What gear/settings?
I like the feeder, don't the squirrels eat it all?

Thanks :) using a Lumix G80, with Olympus 40-150 lens (150 @ 5.6)

Went to the bird hide at Parndon Lock Meadows. They have about 6 different types of feeders which attract a variety of birds. The grass type covering on the feeder is pretty new and helps with the picture.

I'm guessing the squrrels are a problem but Ive never seen any on the feeders. They would make a good picture though :)

I did do this as well but it doesn't look right

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Superb I never get anywhere near a Jay, indeed until the last few years I hadn’t seen one.

Thanks :)
 
Soldato
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Superb I never get anywhere near a Jay, indeed until the last few years I hadn’t seen one.

Eurasian jays are notorious for being hard to spot. They like to stay in trees, and can really only be seen out in the open during the autumn when they are hunting for the likes of acorns on the ground. The blue panels on the wings are a dead givaway, which makes them very striking birds if you can spot them.

We had one visiting the garden bird feeders a few times a couple of years back, and I had to look it up to find out what on earth it was with its electric blue wings. They can do that thing where they can make the feathers on their heads stand up like a quiff.

At the moment we're seeing parakeets and Red Kites. During the height of summer, I counted seventeen Red Kites out the back window all at once, it was like some nature documentary. I was regularly seeing them gliding about just above the tops of the houses. It's pretty impressive to be seeing wild birds of prey with a near two metre wingspan in West London.
 

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Associate
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There's another feeding station out towards Aberystwyth run by Natural Resources Wales which has a lake and the kite pick up food off the water's surface. I was going to do a couple of photography workshops there this summer but obviously that went by the wayside with Covid. It's a better setting than Gigrin for images and there tends to be half as many birds there which makes it a bit easier to isolate single birds. One of the things I like with Gigrin though are the number of raven that wait in the trees in the hour or so leading up to the feed, listening to their gutteral calls, clicks and pops is quite an experience.
 

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I wouldn't be surprised if at some point there will be calls to 'control' the population, they're already on the hit list of the grouse shooting mob who treat anything with a hooked beak as vermin. That would be a real slap in the face for those who worked so hard to successfully reintroduce them.

Someone at work told my wife they were out in the Chilterns having a picnic, and everyone had to eat under the trees or the red kites would come down and nick the food off you like a scary seagull.
 
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