Misty River Sunrise - 8th Feb

Waking up earlier than normal on this particular Friday morning had its advantages, pulling back the curtains I was greeted to a stunning frosty vista across the water meadows. The sun had just started to move from behind the horizon so I quickly dressed, grabbed my camera gear and tripod and literally legged it out across the river bridges to the middle of the water meadows.

It appeared I timed it just right as the pinky orange pastel haze started to give way to the deep fiery glow of the rising Sun. The mist that covered the water meadows and nearby river only adding to the atmospherics.

Having rushed out of the house I literally only had my camera and tripod, so quickly positioned it on the river bank and started snapping away. It was nice to just use the camera settings and take some natural images, no Polarising or ND Grad filters at hand.

As I headed home back to get ready for work, I had to try for a picture of a Mute Swan pair swimming through the river mist. A truly awesome sunrise, well worth braving the cold frosty morning for and well worth missing out on an extra 45 minutes kip.

Looking Eastward

One of the Carriers

River reflections

Misty Mute Swans

PS. When processing these images all I have done is slightly boost the contrast. So you can see how vivid the scene before me was. :-)

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Roving Redstart

As the nights start to close in with increasing speed, time spent out after work with the camera is starting to be a bit of a juggling act, an hour and a half of good light seems to be about all that was on offer the first week in September. Finally some Wildlife showing up again now though, I caught up with a Roe Doe and her two Fawns one evening as the sun had just gone down, the first deer I've seen on the water meadows in about 2 months. A welcomed sight.

Roe Doe

Roe Doe & Fawn

The next night I did have a pleasant surprise, forced to walk through the cows out in the water meadows due to Fishermen on the river, I came across a new patch tick, and a complete new species for me, one that I had been hoping to catch up with for a little while. A Redstart, a juvenile male, but a Redstart none the less. I picked it up on the thistles around the cattle troughs and was quite startled as this gorgeous red plumaged bird disappeared off across the field in front of me. luckily it stopped on the gate posts to one of the Fishing huts, and proceeded to feed and flit about giving me great views at about 40 yards. What a bird, I must admit nothing could wipe the smile off my face for the rest of the evening.

Redstart

Redstart

Redstart

Redstart

Redstart

Still high on my first new species for a longtime, I had a wander around the Half Water the stretch of river on the other side of the water meadows, a tributary of the River Test and fisherman free for the day. Plenty of birds here, with Great Tit, Blue Tit & lots of Long Tailed Tits frequenting the branches above the water. Little Grebe could be heard further downstream and still escape my lens on every trip, there awareness is by far the best I've ever encountered in a bird. I did see 2 Kingfishers and hear another but both moved so fast a picture was near on impossible. Leaving me to look back across the meadows as the suns got lower and lower, backlighting the below shot of a Cow quite nicely.

Backlit Cow

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Water Meadow Roe Deer

Lighter evenings and the longer grass left in the meadows in preparation of silaging, is a big help in pin pointing the local Roe Deer population at the moment, the inhabitants of the Water meadows can be seen most nights just peering out from above the sea of long grass. 

Both the Bucks & Does are now in full their full summer coats, a gorgeous reddish orange colour, which looks stunning in the late evening sun.

Roe Buck

Roe Doe

Below are some shots & a video, I took of a young Roe Doe towards the end of may, before I went away, but forgot to post. The grass was a lot shorter then.

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