Onegav

Well, this is something new, me fishing overnight on a Sunday night!

Sunday for me, is as it is for most people, a time to relax at the end of the busy week and recharge for the next week coming.

However, I have booked tomorrow off work to come fishing with a good mate of mine, Matty. We’ve been friends for a long time but very rarely get to go fishing together, so we booked this trip in some weeks ago to ensure we made it happen!

It’s been a strange week too, I think because I booked the Monday off, it really threw my days out in my head.

Thursday, I was rushing about thinking it was Friday and that I was running out of time to get stuff done.

Friday, I thought it was Thursday, and I was on the verge of arranging some appointments and meetings for “tomorrow”, when I thought I’d best check the dates – sure enough tomorrow was going to be Saturday….. they would not be well attended meetings!

Strange isn’t it, how slight changes to a routine can throw you off your course. I’ve done loads of mid week overnight fishing trips, but I don’t normally book the day off, I think that’s what’s done it.

Anyway, enough rambling on about my internal body clock throwing a cog, todays photograph is an iPhone shot, of me taking shots with my Canon 700d.

A photograph of a photograph being taken, if you like.

I was photographing the wildfowl, they get up-to all sorts! The coots have been busy diving down for bits of weed for their nests, the seagulls have been busy harassing the ducks, stealing their food. The guls can’t dive underwater, so they just mob the ducks and coots that can when they surface with their food!

The swans gave me a lovely few minutes of them being pretty still, all be it far away, whilst they preened themselves. I used my long lens to photograph them, and I think I got some pretty good shots – I’ll show you tomorrow, all being well.

Also, there is a lovely little Moore hen here with two chicks, who overcomes her fears and comes right upto me with a face that says, “please feed me and my chicks”. Of course I throw them a couple of pellets, and they snaffle them quick as a shot and dart back to the undergrowth. If the mother gets one and the chicks don’t, it is wonderful to watch her take the pellet over to them and gently pass the food to her young.

It’s all been going on, and I lost a fish a little earlier too, so whilst that’s really wounding as an angler, it’s a good sign there are fish in the area; so who knows maybe I’ll have more luck later tonight.

Learnings – I took my long lens upto f/13 today and used my tripod to photograph the swans, and I got what I think are some really nice shots. I know in the past I found that f/11 gave me a nice sharp image at about 200mm, so I was keen to see if I could extend that further with a really long shot at full focal length of 300mm.

I got some cool action shots of the seagulls harassing the ducks and coots too, they are awesome in the air, and it was a good exercise to try and capture them mid air dive bombing using my long lens. It wasn’t easy at all, but again, if all goes well, I’ll show you tomorrow…..