Up the coast...

Potter up the coast produced a few useful year-tick fodder... with Brambling, Tundra Bean Geese, European White-fronted Geese, Hen Harrier, Glaucous Gull being the highlights.

Nice weather to boot.

Not much in the way of photographs today.

Hunting...

Late afternoon Glaucous Gull (iPhone)

011111owls

A sunny afternoon today, the first day of November! Took advantage of an early shift at work and headed back down to West Hartford for a couple of hours. They were more productive than yesterdays visit (it was a very dull afternoon).

Nothing "new" seen during the visits, but I rarely get bored of the short-eared owls! Three again this afternoon - taking flight as the sun started to set.. This provided "opportunities" for photography - strong orange casts on the images, tricky autofocus and ever increasing notch ups of ISO to maintain an exposure (or not!)...

Few pics from the trip out. Still room for improvement, but opportunites to spend time in the local field will decrease a bit soon.

Atmospheric...

Dinnertime...

Light seriously going...

Dusk fly-through, ISO 1600

WHHHSEOSEO

A mid to late afternoon visit to West Hartford today, and a first scan of the fields played trumps, with both hen harrier and short-eared owl in the same binocular view. Not a bad start! With others alerted I set the camera up and got settled in for any photo opportunities...

It was a murky afternoon, despite still being "summer" (just), and with distant views, only record shots were achieved. My third HH here in 11 months, but first to make it onto a memory card. Feels like October 2011 has been good for harriers in the UK, pity all I can manage are out of focus record shots!

Pushing cropping to the max - 500mm & 1.4...

Short-eared owl only numbered two today and were generally elusive, as was the harrier ~ it was the assistance of the carrion crow that signalled their return to the fields. Raptor wise it was a good trip - two kestrel and a single common buzzard also noted.

On the pools gulls were well represented with the troupe of C,H, BHs' dropping in prior to their departure to coastal roost sites. A few lapwing were also present.

Three+ stock dove loafed round the water and many wood pigeon continue.