I always check my photographs from previous years and then note what I have been doing on the coresponding dates previously. I could see that I had been photographing Sanderling around this date in other years. This is a species that I am very taken with. A beautiful little bird with very confiding habbits. They are one of the few birds that allow a close approach which makes them good subjects for photography. I see them on my regular visits to Florida, in fact they are very common on the beaches of South Florida and I never fail to see them when I am there. You will encounter them on every stroll along the beach, even if it is crowded with sun worshippers. But back in the UK they are not that easy to find. So at a loose end today, I went to see if I could find one or two. It was quite a walk along the shore line but after a couple of hours I discovered a small group by Groyne 10 at Dawlish Warren. They were feeding on the edge of the surf line like they normally do. Just as the tide goes out they like to feed in the very shallow water. It was hard to see what they were eating but they were finding something very regularly. To get a good photo required something extreme which involved kneeling in the shallow receeding water with the camera on the tripod as low and near the water level as I could get. The way I work is to take as many shots as I can in the hope and expectation of something a little bit different. I keep a constant eye on the exposure, under or over exposing, depending on the light direction and the background. What I am left with is usually hundreds of pictures and just one or two will be good. It's not very scientific but it works for me!! Today I set my camera at around f9 so that I could get all of the little bird in focus and because it was quite bright even though overcast, I was still getting around 1/1000 second with a high ISO of 1000. My Pentax K5 camera is particularly good with high ISO settings and I rarely have too much trouble with over noisy pictures. Regardless of that, in my opinion its better to have a bit of noise if you can get a fastt shutter speed which is just so important to stop blur from the movements of birds.
Bar-tailed Godwit - Limosa lapponica
I have a gallery of Devon birds, so far I have photographed 176 species in Devon. There are a few notable absentees, common birds that I have yet to photograph for inclusion. One of the was the Bar Tailed Godwit a bird that is very commonly seen on the River Exe here in Devon. I just haven't been in the right place at the right time. I think I must have seen them on hundreds of ocassions but missed them thinking that they are Black-Tailed Godwits. So today when I saw a lone Godwit right on the beach at the Warren, I knew almost imediately that it was a Bar-Tailed. Firstly it was noticeably but slightly different than the Black-Tailed that I see all the time. My impressions were that it had longer beak which was slightly upturned, there was a subtle difference in plumage as well. At first I wasn't sure but I can't remember seeing Black tailed Godwits singly before and I also can't remember seeing them that far up the river and on the beach. They always seem to be in the mud either on Exminster Marsh or in the Estuary much further up river where it is very sludgy. I could quite clearly see that it had a barred tail... the clincher.... and then when it took off I could see that it didn't have the bold white marking on the wings that Black tailed Godwits have on their wings. Success and bird number 177 for the gallery. Have a look at the Devon BIrds Gallery here.
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