Not A Kingfisher

I took Ollie dog with me to John Lewis to get a special Serious Readers lamp for MrQ. On the way back we called in at the Tewinbury Hide. A man was inside and did not have the bottom flap down and the top one open only a slit. He said he was hoping to see a flighty female kingfisher that he had already photographed earlier in the day.

I was quite relieved when he left as I couldn't see a thing with the flaps configured in that fashion. I opened up and shortly afterwards a kingfisher flashed though. I decided to stay for half an hour and fifteen minutes later the beautiful bird, a male, returned and landed on the branch right in front of the hide. I got one shot and then it took flight.

When I looked at my image on screen I wasn't happy with it. The light wasn't great, the camera had chosen 800 ISO but I've got much sharper images at much higher. I'm wondering if my lens has been repaired correctly. I had trouble the other day getting a squirrel that was quite close in focus using auto. I was going to post the kingfisher image as it was my only shot of the day but Lightroom has decided it doesn't exist. Annoying but I was sort of pleased.

I got soaked to the skin waiting for a taxi to take me to collect my car from Epping Green and photographed the above chiffchaff in the gloom as it was starting to get dark.