they're back

One genre of nature photography I really enjoy is taking pictures of birds in our local area.  We're very lucky to have a small patch of woodland only a stone's throw from our front door, and around a year ago I started visiting it frequently along with my daughter firstly to feed the birds there, and then to take pictures.

It turns out my daughter is something of a natural when it comes to bird photography, and her images put mine very much to shame.

Anyway, after a winter where seemingly the only birds we saw were robins, blackbirds and magpies, a trip down there last week saw the return of our favourite little bird to the area - the long-tailed tit.

And here's what I managed to photograph:

Fujifilm X-H2, Fujinon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 at 300mm
1/125th of a second at f5.6, ISO 800
handheld

Lovely!

And as if that weren't enough, here's a bonus stonechat perched (carefully I'd imagine) on a prickly gorse bush:

Fujifilm X-H2, Fujinon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 at 400mm
1/60th of a second at f5.6, ISO 125
handheld

We're going to get one of those pop-up camouflaged hides for the spring, in the hope of spotting and photographing some of the more rare and shy visitors to the woods, as well as getting our trail-cam safely and anonymously back in situ there.

You can join my family and me on one of our nature strolls (where I struggle for images if I'm honest) just by clicking below.  You won't even have to go out in the cold!