Blue Tit In Early November

Well for those of you living in the UK you'll have noticed that the weather hasn't exactly been in the photographers favour lately, so any bird photography has been minimal for me in the last few weeks.  So, whilst I hold out for some dry weather on a day I am able to get out there with my camera, here are a few images of a cheeky Blue Tit that visited my garden about three weeks ago and was a most cooperative little bird and stayed around for a few minutes, enough for me to photograph him anyway.

Pigeon In Flight & Magpie

I have not had much experience photographing birds in flight so this is something I thought I would have a go at when the next opportunity arose. I was visiting the WWT centre at Arundel when I noticed loads of pigeons swooping back and forth from the roof of the visitors centre as seed was thrown for the various wildfowl in the ponds/lakes. So I turned my camera on the pigeons and waited for them to make another pass, which the soon did, and I tried this several times with a mixture of results. Two of the best shots from this attempt at 'birds in flight' photography are shown here, and although the exposure is a bit dodgy on the wing of the bird in the first image, I am still satisfied that this is a good starting point to build upon.

Magpies are such beautiful birds and although they are not the best loved of all British birds I think they make great subjects for bird photography, they are charismatic and large enough that you have more time to capture them as they fly by or hop along the ground. This shot was taken when the sun was fairly low in the sky which makes for a warm and bright image with the magpie framed by the greens and yellows of the leaves on the tree.