A couple of weeks back I was very fortunate to have the money to purchase my first ever DSLR camera and lens respectively. I have always wanted to get into bird photography, having been inspired by the many photos I've seen on young birders' blogs and elsewhere on the net. With this inspiration I put in the effort to buy a Canon EOS 40D body and a Canon 400mm f 5.6 lens, both of which I had been reccommend by various people as a top quality combination, the combination to go for. When I was finally able to buy this combination I was over the moon. They rather luckily both arrived before I left to go on a family holiday to North Yorkshire, which meant I was able to take them with and test them out for the first time on that holiday.
I spent a week and 2 days staying in the village of Settrington in North Yorkshire, fairly near to Scarborough and half an hours drive from places such as Bempton Cliffs RSPB and Flamborough Head. I took a fair number of photos on the holiday, most of which were taken in the village of Settrington itself. Settrington, like any other countryside village, held many common species such as Swallow, Collared Dove, Wood Pigeon, House Martin etc. As a novice photographer, I feel it is always best to familiarize yourself with your camera and lens by starting to take photos as locally as possible - such as in your garden or in your local park. What I did was simply walk around Settrington photographing very common species of birds - a perfectly pleasurable thing to do I found. I quickly became familiar with the cameras operations, especially with the Full-Auto mode setting ISO, aperture and such like. Below are some of my favourite shots taken in Settrington.
Swallow - Settrington
Song Thrush - Settrington
House Sparrow - Settrington
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Wood Pigeon - Settrington
Collared Dove - Settrington
Blackbird - Settrington (rather manky looking bird!)
House Martin - Settrington
A few days before I left, I ended up at Flamborough Head on a family day out - a place on the East Yorks coast which is famed for its drift migrants and seabird passage at times. When I visited there wasn't much going on to be honest, but there were a few commoner birds that kept me entertained. See photos below.
Pied Wagtail - Flamborough Head, 5/8
Kittiwakes - Flambourough Head
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Gannets at sea - Flamborough Head
Finally on the way back to Aberdeen I met Andrew Kinghorn, fellow Admin of this blog, and went in search of Long-eared Owls at a site near him in Durham (previously having seen a distant Honey Buzzard at Wykeham Forest before travelling up). I was successful, with one young bird late on. Photograph wise there was a stunning sunset which I captured and a rather silhouetted Yellowhammer, see below. A big thank you to Andrew for showing me the Owls, it was a pleasure to meet you!
Yellowhammer sings the day to sleep at undisclosed site, Durham
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I'm very happy with how I'm getting on with my new photographic equipment, and looking forward to photographing birds locally at my patches (Ythan, Loch of Strathbeg etc.). To see more of my photos feel free to check out my flickr page that is linked below. Any feedback you may like to give me on my photos can be posted on here or on my flickr. I will likely create a photography blog on blogspot in the near future. Cheers all, any photos taken on future days out will likely be posted on here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephbirdphotography/
Joseph
