Stithians Reservoir Bird Portraits

It was wet and windy here in Cornwall today but I went to Stithians Reservoir as planned looking for a recently seen small herd of Red Deer.

Well the deer either saw me coming or had headed off to greener pastures over night so I spent some time working with the mixed bag of small birds at Stithians southern cut-off hide and enjoyed the challenge of capturing portraits of fast and flighty subjects.

Young Blue tit

Young Greenfinch

Chiffchaff

Wren

Male Bullfinch

Female chaffinch

Male Chaffinch

Young Great tit

Stithians Southern Cut-off yesterday

 A visit to Stithians Southern cut-off hide to duck out of the wind and rain proved to be Quite a productive morning with all the usual birds making a good show around the feeding station.

I was working with my new Nikon D500 DX camera body looking to obtain full frame portraits of small birds in the low light levels that were prevailing at the time so it was a bit of a challenge for the camera.

I was using my 500mm F4 lens with a 1.7 Tele-converter fitted which on the DX D500 body gave me a reach of 1275mm and I was pleased with the close-focus Portraits posted below and the cameras low light performance while working on ISO 6400

Birds at Stithians southern cut-off yesterday

While working with the Great Spotted Woodpecker recorded in the previous blog I also recorded the following birds which started with a dark form Pheasant in the fields on the way into the hide and was followed by a disturbed Grey Heron on arrival.

Next up came a feeding Coot and many rather well fed male and female Chaffinch and Blue Tits, Goldfinch and Great Tits.  A rather wet looking raiding Magpie. Two pairs of reed Bunting and to finish a fine looking pair of Bullfinch

Spring Colours Count

In the Spring time its the colours that count when male birds are looking for a mate,   At Stitians southern cut-off this morning all of the males were sporting their finest plumage and it seems to be working for the male Great Spotted Woodpecker on the right in the image above as a female moves in to take a closer look !!

This is a great time of the year to capture images of many species of birds at Stithians some of which are shown in the portfolio posted below.

Jay Today

 To say that the resident Jay at Stithians southern cut-off were camera shy would have to go down on record as an understatement,  Often seen flying by but not stopping if there is even a single window open on the hide and until this morning I have never snapped one here before..... ( IF you want to work with Jay go to Tehidy where they are abundant and reasonably approachable)

Well there has to be a first time for everything and today was to be the day that the Jay gradually moved in branch by branch until it was within range to make a short flight down onto the ground under the feeders to grab a couple of peanuts and was then immediately away over the tree canopy not to be seen again.

I had been busy watching the trees behind the feeders for approaching Woodpecker that were showing well again today so I got an early view of the Jay inching its way forward and was able to pick off shots as it moved between the branches using a Nikon 500mm lens fitted with a 2x Tele-converter which increased my focal length to 1000mm to improve the subject size in the full  frame images.

Other subjects worked on with the same lens assembly included a male Reed Bunting, Blue tit, Sparrow and a lively Robin posted below

Recent Stithians flight portraits

Following on from 'The Pecking Order' blog I have added here a few more flight Photo opportunites produced by the attraction of birds to Stithians feeding station,  First up the female Great Spotted Woodpecker is alerted by the sound of my shutter firing and the second image of her immediate departure is merged with the first,  Blue Tit, Chaffinch,  Long tailed Tit and Coal Tit form part of a steady stream of birds flying to and from the feeders, and male and female Bullfinch will often feed under the feeders and on surrounding vegetation seed heads as in the final image.