Gold Crest

 A few weeks ago I saw a pair of Goldcrests while I was out for a walk, I managed to get a few photos on my phone's camera because they had flown onto a bush right next to me and stayed around for a little while. I wanted to go back and capture some more images using my DSLR so I went back to the same spot and waited.

Although it was a sunny day the light in the woodland was not that great and also the large number of dog walkers on my chosen day meant there was a lot more traffic than on my previous visit. The birds did appear after a short while but they were more skittish and wary than the last time so I was pushing my equipment to get these shots. They were all taken at 560mm F8.0 1/1000 sec and 10,000 ISO. Due to the high ISO there is a lot of noise in the RAW images so I have removed some of that in lightroom resulting in some loss of detail. Nevertheless, I was thrilled to see these beautiful birds again and I am fairly pleased with the above images. I am sure to go back again in the hope of getting some more, and better, shots of these stunning little beauties.

Little Beauty

 So I only have one photo for today.

I recently went to a spot where I had previously seen a couple of pairs of Goldcrests and I was hoping that I would get a chance to photograph one as they are beautiful tiny birds and I have only seen them a handful of times. 

I had waited for a little while and although I could hear one rustling around I almost gave up because it was almost impossible to see. I was at the point of moving on when this bird flew past me and gave me a brief chance to snap a few shots. Sadly I couldn't get a clear shot of its wonderful gold crest from which it gets its name but even so I was quite pleased with this one image. 

It is Britain's smallest bird at about 9 cm (3.5 inches) so you can understand why they are hard to spot. They prefer coniferous woodland and they feed on insects and spiders. This species is increasing in population so the chance of spotting them is possibly increasing but you have to look hard because they are so small. I hope this wont be the last shot I get of one...