Elmley Marsh 22 Feb (and thanks to DC)

This week I took another trip to Sheppey trying to see Golden and Grey Plovers and hopefully Short Eared Owls.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't manage to see any of the above, but I did get a rather nice image of a Stonechat.

Although I was dissappointed with not seeing my target species, I did get the chance to watch several Marsh Harriers that were hunting, but staying tantalisingly out of range of my camera (I really must bolt that 2x on at some point and get practising).

I'm quite happy with this image and more particulary, the processing - having read Dave Courtney's piece on the adjustment brush on LR2, I used it for the first time today to selectively saturate, lighten and sharpen this image whilst in RAW. Normally I would do that to the .JPEG in CS3 after exporting, so I will certainly be using this as part of my process in future.

I could never get the layers and masks thing, and LR makes this so easy...........cheers Dave. Another thing learned !

Elmley Marshes on Sheppey

I took a trip to Elmley on Sunday as I had a free day - the forcast was not great, but a friend of mine had visited the day before and had seen 3 short eared owls, and so I thought I would take the camera down there and see what I could get.

RSPB Elmley is accessable via a long unmade road which crosses a large expanse of marsh that allows some of the best views of Lapwing, Egret and Heron that I've had in the UK- all very close up and all by using the car as your hide.

The Egret was no more than 20 ft from the car and happy to stand, even while I moved the car to get better position.

The Heron was actively hunting in the pools by the road, and pretty much stayed until he decided to move elsewhere to look for something else to eat.

Having got my pictures there, I moved off to another well known spot, Harty Ferry Road to wait for the SEO's to appear. Unfortunately, they didn't appear this time, but a Barn Owl did fly in front of the car, along with Partridge and a Stoat which was climbing some posts - I only managed to capture the Barn Owl, but will have to paost that later as it's not a great effort.

I'm off to Minsmere next week, so keep looking in updates and latest news.