It is a while since I got out before dawn with the specific intention of photographing Alcedo Atthis in not so familiar places. I used to do much of this before going to UCS to study Photography and it was this morning in a stiff Easterly breeze that I realised that the art of capturing birds like these effectively is down to practice and plenty of it. In all I have more or less stood rooted on the same few square yards for 4 hours. I was blessed with a more or less instant presentation of a bird some 400 yards across the river in the pre-sunrise gloom. I’ve not posted that here as it is far too grubby an image but locking in on a fast moving bird of this size really is a testament to the equipment and years of training.

This morning’s bird was a female and now i know here routine (of sorts) I’ll know where to be tomorrow morning. The tide was flooding this morning and my recent observations on the Gipping concluded in increased incidences of sightings at ultra low tide. I went back 30 minutes before  low water this afternoon and within 10 minutes had a visit. This time a male.

Much of the time spent watching and waiting is very similar to my large format approach. I came here loaded  with 20 sheets of 5×4 but the weather today was far too blustery. Great for the yachts but not for the field camera. It would have behaved like a spinnaker.

Plan B was the D3S and 200-400 F4 that I later added the 1.4 converter to for this shot of the male bird taking off from oyster cages exposed at low water.