IT’S VERY HARD. (30/06/14)

I don’t recall what time I arose this morning. I went to bed early then got up then went to bed then got up again. I’m not a teenager with a new girlfriend, I’m a somnambulist or an insomniac with two dogs. I always have had trouble sleeping. It was awkward for girls when I was younger as they never got a full nights sleep. As they got older it became very annoying for them. I went to sea to work. It is a positive advantage there. The slightest change in the vessels motion and I would be out of bed to find out why.

This morning I cleaned the van a bit, accompanied the dogs to the beach. Cleaned the van a bit more, then it was half eight. The shop was open, I didn’t really need anything but a paper, papers come with the post at eleven here but we still had a wander up for a chat. I did buy a load of cheese and the bread they bake. I got some olives in Vacpack to go with the cheese.

Sometime during the night I took these.

   The Orkney Isles or a bit of them.

    The Ecuador Star outward bound from St. Petersburg and inbound for Christobal. She’s in ballast and is a Reefer, a refrigerated cargo ship.

I went for an early morning siesta. Then out again to try DOUGLAS’S very good tutorial on shooting birds. He said to sit down and watch one bird. I’d already sorted the focus points and their sensitivity in Canon’s C.Fn III menu. Some bits I didn’t understand but I tried. there are twelve different settings in C.Fn III alone and there are lots of Custom Functions.

 Douglas…..None mentioned ‘Ring of Fire’. For focus points. I picked centre and the ones nearest to centre. I guess that’s what you meant. I also found a thingy that allows the focus to track quicker so gave that a nudge upwards. Then I thought I maybe don’t want it to record these pictures fast so found another menu that said record bursts of five I nudged that one down to four.

Here they are. I picked a Common Gull, it could be a Kittiwake but I’ll stick with the Common gull as it ridded all the Blackheaded Gulls. I sat down and tried my best but t isn’t easy.

It started off on the ground and I still missed a bit of wing. No worries I got most of the right wing.

    Then having frightened the Black headed Gull it changed direction just to confuse me and I missed a bit of left wing.

  It then started to retract it’s undercarriage but it was going fast and I missed a bit of it’s beak.

    Here it is flapping away in normal mode. Thanks Douglas. Not perfek but better. I didn’t use motor drive and none are perfect but I didn’t crop. That’s why they are crap.

I noticed it was ringed I have been considering bird ringing since I decided it was evil to shoot them.  They now flag legs, they put beak rings in, they put cattle tags in their wings…. Hey you lot that tag birds and mist net little birds for sport; please stop it, just watch them. Mist netting is awful. Imagine if you hit a chicken fence at full speed… Not nice. You contribute bugger all to science as your tag recovery rate is less than 3%. Just leave them alone and keep away from nesting sites. That will help the birds to increase in number. I know the bird taggers are licenced but have not looked who issues the licence. I suspect it is a Quango. Probably a charity like the RSPB.

I used to keep Bantam Hens and my first job in spring was to stop hens going broody I was out all hours finding where the cunning devils had laid eggs. The purpose was to stop an excess males. Two males to twelve females was about right. The Cocks don’t fight hard then. I never succeeded, I always had to pop thirty percent of the chicks in the pot.

I’m away tomorrow to lean over a cliff for a snap of a Puffin in flight with a gob full of eels. I bet if I fail I would wish I’d got a pair of scissors to clip their wings and a net.

Have fun.