I set off through the plantation with sun beams shining through the pines and I was looking forward to getting out into the countryside. At which point the light went out. The wind picked up and as the mist lifted, it was replaced by a thick cloud layer, and it became rather chilly. Very disappointing.
Birds were in rather short supply as well and it was hard finding anything. What wasn't helping were the farming activities, most of the fields have just been ploughed and tractors were out and about in force-some seemed to be sowing seed, others spraying something which didn't smell all that nice.
May explain why I haven't been feeling great the last couple of days.
Anyway, once I got onto the Walkern road, and then down to the paddocks, things did pick up a bit. There were several Skylarks, including one or two singing. some Meadow Pipits, and a few Linnets and Yellowhammers flying over. I got my first Redwings of the autumn too, with initially four birds seen, then another flock of 15, all heading down the Beane Valley.
I eventually managed to find some autumn colours.
Yesterday I received a package from Germany-a Leica digiscope adaptor for the spotting scope. On the GX8 it gives effective focal lengths of 1710mm at 25x and 3420mm at 50x. The focal ratios are very slow and it needs good light and high iso's to get sharp images. A test soon after it arrived wasn't successful. The light was very poor thanks to ex Hurricane Ophelia with a really weird sepia tint to everything and a dark red Sun (on the rare occasions it could be seen) thanks to Portuguese wildfires and Sahara dust. This is an iPhone snap of the garden mid afternoon.
I tried this morning in good light. I discovered I really needed the phone app to control the camera thanks to the very high magnifications. This is a Leonotis half way down the garden from the patio, so around 25-30 feet away. The flower is maybe 2" across.
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