RSPB Bempton Cliffs,

V-Spec · 26 May 2008 at 23:06

As I mentioned in the other thread, I made a trip to Bempton Cliffs today, this time armed to the teeth with the 600/F4, I could however, have done with some kind of shield as I still managed to get covered in bird poo.
The wind was so strong that birds going for a dump halfway down the cliffs. The poo ended up getting blown vertically upwards and landing on myself and others its like having sand chucked in your eyes - not pleasant lol.

As normal, pretty much everything flies at Bempton, so not many opportunities for any courtship ritual shots with the exception of the last shot of the guillemots.
I love Gannets and wanted some of them rubbing their heads together, but they were too far down the cliff, so I had to settle for them charging around the cliff tops!

I bought an awful flapjack thing full of sultanas which I hate, so I decided to bait this jackdaw and waited for him to land on the fence with the purple and green background.. took a few attempts but he did it eventually.

olv · 26 May 2008 at 23:21

impressive as always. i especially love that you always manage to fill the frame. do you often crop or are the composures pretty much out of the camera?

great work

edit - errr composures? compositions is what I meant

Tooks · 26 May 2008 at 23:22

One word describes most of those poor birds - windswept!! The weather wasn't the best today was it?

I was due to go there tomorrow, but I think due to the weather I'm postponing it!

Great shots nonetheless, and I'm looking forward to going there soon!

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 26 May 2008 at 23:38

highly impressive Tim.

Beautifully captured and the sharpness of the 600 is truly showing its self off.

33L · 27 May 2008 at 08:04

those shots are really awesome the DOF is amazing the clarity is brilliant and the sharpness OMG!

V-Spec · 27 May 2008 at 10:10

olv said:
impressive as always. i especially love that you always manage to fill the frame. do you often crop or are the composures pretty much out of the camera?

great work

edit - errr composures? compositions is what I meant

Thanks for the comments

All the shots are full frame, i've done a tiny bit of processing to some of the shots, I had highlight tone priority turned on in the camera which is a godsend for preserving the highlight detail in extreme sunlight.

I did want to get a full frame portrait shot of a gannet's head whilst in flight with a 1.4x, really difficult and only had one attempt and he put his wing up which masked his eye so

maybe next time. They have these pretty blue rings around their eyes, they look great in the sun.

wez130 · 27 May 2008 at 16:27

Nice efforts there v-spec, were there many puffins about as last weekend, i only saw 2 on the cliff face amongst hundreds of guillemots, guess you never saw the peregrine did you not?

Again, nice work on the pics

V-Spec · 27 May 2008 at 16:42

wez130 said:
Nice efforts there v-spec, were there many puffins about as last weekend, i only saw 2 on the cliff face amongst hundreds of guillemots, guess you never saw the peregrine did you not?

Again, nice work on the pics

Peregrine wasn't about unfortunatley, I kept an eye out for all the birds exploding off the cliff but it never happened.

I saw about 5 different puffins in total, I was lucky with the shots I got as they hovered infront of me for about 3 seconds then went away and didn't come that close again whilst I was there.