Well I bit the bullet and bought the 800 f5.6! I've used it mainly over two days last weekend and WOW is the only word to describe it. That's not to say I wouldn't have been impressed with the 600 f4, but I'm just blown away by the focus and tack sharp appearance of the images straight out of the camera! The autofocus is fast and precise and is just spot on. I shot probably 4000 images with my 50D through the lens and with consistently superb results. Being my first super-tele I'm just astounded at the opportunities it brings, even compared to my 400 DO. I reckon I now have a pretty formidable kit with the 400 DO being perfect for hand-holding all day, flight shots, using on boats at sea, and then whacking the 1.4x extender on when needs be, and the 800 as a serious bit of kit for tripod work.

Below are some of the images taken with the lens (and in the daily blogs below that all images taken on 7 August were through that lens). The top images below are crops, whilst the images below that are 100% crops of the above image. I have adjusted the RAW images a little in Adobe Lightroom - mainly exposure (which is generally spot on with the 50D), saturation increased a little, and a little sharpness added. Then exported as jpegs. I'm very happy with the results.

Keep in mind that this is my first super-tele, and is really the first time I have done serious photography from a tripod. I do not yet have a gimbal head - this was on my Manfrotto 055NAT with a sturdy pan & tilt head. Can't wait to get the Wimberley II! Comments welcomed, email me with comments.

Well a couple of days at Mum and Dad's place in the Forest of Dean and then borrowed their campervan and headed across to Rutland. We (Wrybill Birding Tours, NZ) had a shared stand with Furhana from Ruggedy Range tm Wilderness Experience, and spent a very hectic three days at our first British Birdwatching Fair. This is the biggest event of its kind in the World, with something like around 23,000 people attending over the three days last year, and this year probably something like 30,000. Friday and Saturday were absolutely manic with a constant stream of people passing through past the stand. We were situated on the end of the Art Marquee and had a couple of other travel operators for company, and we seemed to get a fair mix of people looking for travel experiences and those visiting the art marquee. Sunday was a little less busy to start with, but was again a very busy day, but more with families and people not as focussed on finding out about destinations for their next birding holiday.

Overall it was an incredible experience, and made me starkly aware that we need to attend every year. A big thanks to Sav's good mate Andy Clements from the BTO who put in a great plug for us and the rediscovery of the New Zealand storm-petrel, but also introduced me to a bunch a of great people and helped make the whole experience a really rewarding one. Hopefully Sav and I can both attend the 2010 Bird Fair....we will see!

Up early and birding Marazion Marshes and the Penzance coast with Ashley and the rest of the crew. A spotted crake had been found there on the 16th, but exact details on its location were not available. We scanned from the main road, with a little egret, several grey heron, and some moorhens present, but no sign of any crakes or even water rails. Checking out the beach there were good numbers of gulls, with a Mediterranean gull present amongst the black-headed gulls, and lots of sanderling, ringed plover, and dunlin feeding along the beach. We wandered into the marshes along a short trail and scanned another area of reedbed margin, but no luck on crakes, but sharp eyes spotted a sparrowhawk and snipe (flying), and I heard a Cetti's warbler off in the reeds.

We drove a short distance down to Long Rock beach, and had crippling views of a bunch of stunning juvenile black-tailed godwit with two adults (Iceland race), a juvenile bar-tailed godwit, several Eurasian curlew, and a whimbrel! All we needed was a Hudsonian godwit to complete the picture! Nice to have all these birds right there with really good scope views, plus dunlin, ringed plover and sanderling also on the beach.

The crew then dropped me off at the Penzance train station, and I headed off on the three train, almost 6 hour journey up to Gloucester, where Mum and Dad picked me up. Good to see them and then chill out back at their place near Coleford in the Forest of Dean. Time to get last minute things ready for the Bird Fair...

Again up early and Bob and I headed down to Porth Hellick. We again found the ruff, wood sand, lesser yellow-legs, greenshank, and common sands still present, but nothing new had arrived. We then decided to head out and explore the rest of the local area to see if anything had come in overnight - this really is the amazing thing about migration time particularly on Scilly, in that you never know what may have come in overnight. It's not a case of having been there yesterday and there was nothing, so there won't be anything there now...things just change so quickly. So we headed down to Porth Hellick beach to check the vegetation along the top of the beach. Found a juv dunlin on the mudflats with the usual greenshank, whimbrel, oystercatchers, and ringed plover, but a really nice bright sedge warbler acting as if it had just arrived was the only thing along the top of the beach.

We then headed around to Holy Vale, checking likely bushes, hedgerows, etc along the way and although the place was still fairly birdy, it wasn't as busy as the day before. We found blackcap, reed and willow warblers, and a few other bits and pieces, but nothing out of the ordinary. We decided to head back to Bob's for some brekkie and I shot down to check for the melodious warbler again. Met with James McCallum who had just seen the bird, but it had scarpered into the bushes, so no luck there after about 30 minutes...tricky little sod!

Bob and I then headed off up to the Garrison, one of the high points on St Mary's, where we there is a good patch of scrub and forest that's often good for warblers and other migrants. Nothing particularly unusual, but got some good shots of a moulting juv blackbird that might come in handy some day, and saw several stonechat. Meeting up with James again he said he'd seen the melodious again and it had been showing well for the last half hour...typical! So we headed back down to check it out. We positioned ourselves on the beach and waited...and Bob saw the bird fly up off the beach, and then a few minutes later it was back down on the beach, feeding in the vegetation just above the high tide line. Managed a couple of pretty decent views of the bird, before Paul Stancliffe came racing back along the beach and said he'd just seen a barred warbler on the coastal path just 100m or so away. Bob and I raced up with him, but we didn't refind the bird, which by the sound of it had just arrived and was flitting around the place looking for somewhere to call home for a few days/hours. Just shows how quickly things can happen and a real taste for what it must be like during the height of migration...I've got to get back some stage in Oct to experience it in full flight!

We headed back to Bob's for some lunch and then headed back out to check out the Golf Course, Telegraph Hill, and some other local spots. Not a lot doing, but as usual Bob was able to point out all the spots where great birds had turned up over the years, including the spot where Sav had found the eye-browed thrush. We had great views out across the the islands to Tresco, St Martins, etc. Just a beautiful clear day and seeing the Scilly's at its best. We visited all of the best spots for shrikes, as it is a good time of year for them, but unfortunately we couldn't rustle one up...we gave it a damn good go though! Bob then took me down to the quay late afternoon as it was time to catch the Scillonian III back to the mainland. Sad to leave to be honest, I'd love to have spent more time, and just so grateful to Bob for an absolutely fantastic time with him. I must say a big thanks to Neil Donaghy and Ashley Saunders (from Oriole Birding) for having me along too, thanks guys!

The crossing was pretty flat calm, with very little wind, but lovely conditions for standing on the back deck in the sun! Not a lot of bird action, but did see a few Euro stormies, fulmars, Manx shears, and some possible Balearic shears, but nothing out of the ordinary. Said our good-byes to some of the crew from the weekend, and then the rest of us headed back to our B&B for a lovely dinner. Freshly mown sileage fields yielded a couple of buzzards and two foxes, obviously out looking for mice/voles caught in the mower. An early night!

Up again early and off to Porth Hellick Pool with Bob. We found all the same birds from the last few days, and then headed across to the Porth Hellick Beach. Beautiful morning, with the sun peeping out through the clouds every now and then, and we found a few ringed plover, whimbrel, oystercatcher, and greenshank on the mud feeding and bathing. We headed up to the airfield, and being a Sunday there are no flights so could wander around looking for waders etc on the grass around the airstrip. Several wheatears were showing and Bob figured these were relatively new arrivals. As we approached the terminal Bob spotted a wader running and I caught it at the same time from the corner of my eye. Getting the bins on it we realised it was something good. Before we had a good enough view to ID the bird, it flew off down the runway and out of sight... With hearts pounding and quick chatting going on we realised it was either an unusual ruff or.....a BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER! We both felt the bird had a relatively short bill and the shape was also right, but as the views had been so brief confirmation was not possible. We headed along the edge of the shrubby margin, scanning ahead and finally found the bird near the end of the turning bay, feeding along the edge of the runway. Bob quickly got the scope on it and I popped a couple of distant shots. With the bird in the scope it was obvious that it was indeed a buff-breasted sandpiper, a lifer for me and an absolutely crippling bird. These long distance migrants are not easy to see, and to see one in the mecca of the Scilly's (THE place in the UK to see them) was absolutely fantastic. Bob set about contacting people and putting it on the pager, and I began to work a little closer to get some photographs. I managed to crawl into within about 80m of the bird and decided that was close enough to get some better shots, whilst not risking putting the bird up before others got there. We watched the bird for about 15 minutes before a small group assembled to see what is probably the earliest buffy for Scilly - normally being found in late August or Sept. It then moved further towards the turning circle and I moved closer with the bird seeming pretty comfortable. It then headed back along the otherside of the runway towards me and then crossed the runway and feeding again on my side. I managed some pretty decent images with the 400 DO and 1.4x extender....oh how I wish I'd had the 800mm with me! It fed in the short grass for about 10 minutes and then suddenly stopped, looked around for a few minutes and then got up and flew off out to the south going really high and eventually disappearing. We all thought that was probably the end of it, but the bird eventually came back about half hour later by all accounts and was reported on the pager several times over the next few days. What a bird and to be co-finder with Bob was a real buzz!

We then headed (floated??!!) back down to Porth Hellick Beach and through some gardens etc to Holy Vale. It was really birdy, with lots of willow, sedge and reed warblers around, many being on passage. We found both pied and spotted flycatcher at Holy Vale, and then headed back to Bob's place and I went off down to look for the melodious warbler again. A bunch of the CBT crew were there, having seen it early in the morning, but spent about 1/2 hour there with no luck. I then headed back to Bob's to have a cup of tea and to sort through a few more images. Bob got a tip-off that the black-browed albatross may have been seen off to the north of the islands around 1030 hrs and with reports of a Cory's shearwater movement from Cornwall that morning and Ireland the day before it looked like the afternoon was going to be a good one! We headed down to the quay for our last trip out on the Sapphire at 1400 hrs. The sea was really quite calm now, with very little swell and only a light breeze, which wasn't the best for seabirds, but we headed out towards a fishing trawler just offshore and as we approached several distant Cory's shearwaters were spotted. We ended up seeing probably nine birds over the course of the next hour, unfortunately none really close, but we still had pretty good views, and better than my distant views off Cape Town in March. No photos though. With such little wind and the hope of more good things to come we headed back out to Seven Stones reef, seeing a distant Arctic skua on the way, as well as harbour porpoise and common dolphins. At the reef we chummed intently, with a great shearwater making a brief pass, and a sooty shearwater really coming in and making a much closer pass, coming right down the side of the boat. Two more Wilson's storm-petrels made an appearance during the afternoon and we again had nice views of European stormies, fulmars, etc. A passing trawler heading back to Cornwall took a lot of our gulls with it, but as gulls started drifting back to us a first-summer Sabine's gull flew right past the back of the boat - what a stunner and a bird I have seen but longed of better views for some time now! Very happy.

We sat it out watching things come past, hoping for that albatross, but alas! A damn good trip nonetheless! We then headed back in towards home, seeing a few bits and pieces along the way, including quite a few Atlantic grey seals perched up on rocks. We were back in around 1920 hrs and decided to call it a day...and after consecutive 0545 starts I was pretty happy with that! After another lovely dinner prepared by Mandy Bob showed me some of his fantastic seabird video work. Wow, he has some amazing stuff from seabirds all over the World and I really look forward to seeing it on DVD. He currently has a DVD on "Flight behaviour of 'black & white' storm-petrels of the North Atlantic" which is a fantastic piece of work and is just so instructive. This is especially true for photographers like my self who spend too much time behind the camera and not enough actually watching these birds at sea. When you do watch them it is just incredible how different even morphologically similar species can be!

Up crack of dawn and off to quickly check Porth Hellick Pool again. Bob generally checks the area out early most mornings to see if anything has come in overnight. We found the lesser yellowlegs still showing well, along with the common sandpipers and greenshank, but the green sands had moved. Nothing else new, except the lesser yellowlegs tried to fool us by flying quickly around the place whilst we moved hides, washing and coating its legs in mud to add to the confusion!

We then headed down to meet the Sapphire again at 0730 and headed off out with a little drizzle and overcast conditions, about 1m swell and a nice 10-15 knot wind. Pretty good seabirding conditions, with the visibility and light improving during the day. We headed out to the south and set about chumming at a location several miles to the south of the Scilly Isles. Before too long we again had a good flock of gulls around the back of the boat, with fulmars, gannets, and small numbers of European storm-petrels passing. We spent about 1.5 hours chumming at this location, catching and tagging the largest blue shark I've ever seen - about 7-8 foot female in the region of 55kg or so. A pretty big fish! Joe and a mate have been tagging blue sharks for a while now and have helped add to the knowledge of distribution and movements of this species in the North Atlantic. A fishing trawler was then spotted off on the horizon, so we headed for that, and as we approached saw a large flock of birds behind it. In the wake were a lot of European stormies, and it didn't take long for someone to spot a great shearwater in the wake. We had fairly good views of the bird as it flew at the back of the trawler and settled on the water a few times, and it eventually did a couple of reasonably close passes before heading off. We set about chumming in the area, with the trawler heading off, and soon dragged in our first of six Wilson's storm-petrels for the day. Some of the the European storm-petrels came in incredibly close giving great photo opportunities, and at least a couple of the Wilson's also did the same. It was really instructive seeing the Wilson's flying amongst the European stormies and getting a feel for the flight and jizz of these two species. The European stormies always flap rapidly with angled pointed wings, whereas the Wilson's have a straighter broader wing and flap less rapidly. Plumage wise they are similar, except that most Wilson's have completely dark underwings (without the pale underwing panel of the Euro stormies) and a pale 'carpal' patch on the upperwing, plus they are slightly larger. Once you get your eye in you can pick them at a distance, and Bob and Ashley can both pick them several hundred metres off just on jizz alone. Handy guys to learn from!

We spent a good deal of time chumming, bringing in more stormies, and then an adult black tern flew into the slick, unfortunately not hanging around, but just passing through, but an unexpected lifer nonetheless! We decided to head in a little earlier than planned, as a wood sandpiper had been seen early this morning at Porth Hellick and come over the pager - the damn thing wasn't there when Bob and I were! The pager system here in the UK is incredible, with rare birds being reported via phone, and the report going out on pagers within minutes. An incredibly efficient way of getting bird news out. So we started to head in around 1400hrs. On the way I spotted a large pod of short-beaked common dolphins off on the horizon, with accompanying gannets, and as we headed towards them we realised there were over 100+ and they were heading our way. They were intent on travelling, and didn't come in and bow-ride too much, but we got some great views of them with a real mix of ages, with some relatively small youngsters and some really large adults. Exciting stuff. As we continued on in, just before we entered the islands the shout went up for Balearic shearwater (split recently from Mediterranean shearwater) and the bird came straight up the wake and landed at the back of the boat. Apparently this is typical behaviour for this species which generally comes right in to boats and vigourously feeds on chum. We had excellent views over a period of around 25 minutes, with the bird doing many sweeping arcs of the boat and coming into land beside the boat and feed. In flight the bird has a very similar jizz to sooty shearwater with bowed wings and flappy sort of flight quite unlike the stiff-winged Manx or our fluttering shearwater. Very happy!

We arrived back at the quay at around 1550 and headed out to Porth Hellick Pool to see the wood sandpiper. It was still present, also with a lovely juv ruff, and showing really well in front of one of the hides. The lesser yellowlegs was still present also as well as greenshank, common sand, and water rail. A pretty darn good day, we thought we'd try our luck on the melodious warbler just down the road from Bob's place at Porth Minnick. It had been present for around a week and showing well particularly in the early morning. We gave it about 1/2 hour but no luck and with a lot of people walking the coastal trail it was no surprise.

We had a lovely dinner with the CBT crew at the Pilot's Gig resturant - owned by Bryan Thomas - before going though some of the nearly 2000 images taken during the day. Got a few nice shots of Wilson's and European storm-petrels, fulmars, and the Balearic and great shear.

Up early after a good nights sleep - jet lag catching up - and breakfast before meeting the rest of the group and leader Ashley Saunders from Oriole Birding. We headed down to meet the Scillonian III, the ferry out to the Scilly's. Drizzle and low cloud/mist didn't bode well, but broke every now and then and we boarded and left the pier at 0915 hrs. Heading out across a relatively flat sea we spotted a few Manx shears distantly and a distant Balearic shear evaded me (damn, lifer!). Started to get reasonable ones and twos of European storm-petrels but mostly out beyond about 300m+. A couple of harbour porpoise rounded off the trip across and we landed on St Mary's around 1215.

Bob Flood from Scilly Pelagics was there to meet us and whilst the CBT crew headed off to their accomodation I headed off with Bob to his place, where himself and Mandy had kindly offered to put me up for the weekend. On the way we bumped into Bryan Thomas who had been with Bob when they got the second record of NZ storm-petrel out in the Hauraki Gulf in Nov 2003. Great to finally meet them both actually as it has been a long time since the re-discovery, with quite a bit of email correspondence, especially in the early days.

We had a quick bite of lunch and then headed out on the Sapphire with Skipper Joe Pender at 1330. The CBT crew were all present and Ashley Fisher, Bob's off-sider came along as chum-master and spotter as well. Man these guys are sharp birders and are picking up the birds miles off as they come in, even after a whole day of starring at the sea. We headed off out to the NE to a reef called Seven Stones and chummed along the way, attracting a good cloud of Herring, lesser and great black-backed gulls, plus good numbers of European storm-petrels in the wake. On the way out we also spotted an Oceanic sunfish floating on the surface and we managed to get right along side before it dove. We arrived and chummed for around 90 minutes at Seven Stones and had excellent views of European storm-petrels, at least three Wilson's storm-petrel, good numbers of fulmars, a sooty shearwater and a couple of distant Manx shears. An excellent afternoon and I managed a few good photos even though it was pretty overcast and we had the odd shower. On the way back in lots of shags and Atlantic grey seals on some of the rocks.

We had a lovely curry and then off to Porth Hellick Pool to check out the lesser yellowlegs that has been present for a few days now. Saw that feeding nearby and also several green sandpipers, common sands and a lovely juvenile greenshank. There were a few moorhens being bossy around the place and we scanned the reedy margins for water rail as Bob had seen three in the last few days. Bob's supersharp eyes picked one up, but it scarpered into the reeds, but I managed to find another out from the reed edge. Nice juv birds and a lifer for me. A pretty good start to the week

Seems like I've only been home for a few weeks, and it's time to head away again. Back to the UK, this time to attend the British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water. We - Wrybill Birding Tours, NZ - have a stand at the Fair and really looking forward to attending and meeting people there. It is one of those events you hear about, and if at all possible need to experience. I'm currently on the train heading from London to Penzance, with a weekend out on the Scilly Isles. At least four red kite and a little egret from the train on the way! I was picked up from the train station by Sue and Tom Carson, great friends from our Feb 21-day tour, and we headed to a local pub to have a couple of pints and catch up. Great to see them and grateful for the lift to the B&B.

Will be meeting and staying with Bob Flood - co-rediscoverer of the New Zealand storm-petrel - and getting out on a couple of Scilly Pelagics' trips which Bob and Ashley Fisher operate. These guys really are the seabird gurus in this part of the World, so really looking forward to getting out. The target bird will be Wilson's storm-petrel, something that Bob and Ashley have really pioneered the search for off Britain. However, I also need Balearic shearwater for my life list, a bunch of things for my UK list (Cory's & great shearwater) and several things I would love better views of (European storm-petrel & Sabine's gull). These guys have seen some outstanding things over the years, with I think 7 Fea's petrels to date, a Madeiran storm-petrel, a Swinhoe's storm-petrel, as well as Scopoli's shearwater. So who knows what we might see, there has even been a black-browed albatross seen off the Cornish coast recently! The weather is looking good at this stage so fingers crossed!

Headed down to the Manawatu Estuary late morning, with the high tide being just after midday. I was hoping to get some pics of the small bar-tailed godwit flock amongst other things, but the waders were pretty wary and didn't allow close approach. A couple of variable oystercatchers managed to stay put and I got a few shots with the new lens. I decided to track down the great egret (white heron) that Duncan Watson said had been present again earlier, and met up with Alex Scott a local photographer, on the same mission. We found the bird in a small drain right beside the road, and although the background was not the best took a few photos of the bird stalkng through water jabbing at prey every now and then. A couple of welcome swallows perched on powerlines overhead brought about a momentary distraction, before the egret flew back towards the estuary, landing out on the mudflats.

I headed across hoping to take advantage of a far more natural and less distracting background. The mud was fairly soft in places, but I managed to get within photographic distance of the very confiding bird by which time a royal spoonbill was also feeding closeby. I decided to focus more on the spoonbill and took a bunch of shots of it feeding with typical side to side motion of the bill in water about a foot deep. Unfortunately the bird was a little dirty, looking like it had be rolling in the mud at some stage, but it was pretty confiding also and I managed some pretty pleasing full frame images. I then focussed back on the egret which had moved and was starting to feed up a small stream with rushes lining it, so moved into position ahead of where it was working towards, which luckily was with the sun to my back - perfect! It soon became apparent the 800 was going to be overkill, so swapped to the 400 DO and hand held for a pretty cool series of images of the bird getting steadily closer, with all sorts of weird and wonderful poses. I managed a few 'strike' pics as well and at one stage it caught a small fish, other times small fish larvae. It ended up feeding right to within about 3m of me with full frame head shots possible with the 400 DO. Pretty happy with that.

I then moved back to focussing on the spoonbill, but it steadily moved off, only to have a spur-winged plover move into range and feed along a stream, got a nice series of this including some full frame shots as it came closer and closer. A white-faced heron also joined the party, and with nice lighting got some more shots of this. I then decided it was time to head out onto the mudflats proper and see if I could find some godwit or wrybill, and I found about 12 wrybill feeding a wee way out on the flats. Pretty sticky underfoot I got some great shots of these guys feeding as I kneeled in the mud. They have to be one of the most photogenic shorebirds in the World, and I think I captured a few times their typical curved head feeding method, utilising that curved bill...I'm yet to find one with a bill curved to the left!

Decided there was still a long drive ahead of me to get back home, so headed off around 1640.

Up early again and Sav and I headed across to Wanganui to meet up with the rest of a gang heading out on a pelagic trip from Wanganui Port. Paul Gibson had organised a boat charter aboard the Vagabon and 11 of us plus the two skippers headed out across the bar and out on a pretty flat day. Peter Frost has written a full trip report and posted here on the BirdingNZ.net forum. There was almost no swell, perhaps 1/2 metre at the most and just a light breeze which picked up a little as we headed out but dropped off by about 1100 hrs. As we headed out talk moved towards some pretty excellent birds that had recently been recovered alive a little inland near Wanganui - with two light-mantled sooties and a royal albatross very recently. A freshly dead blue petrel had also been picked up recently off one of the local beaches...so some great birds out there!

As we steamed along we saw the odd fluttering shearwater, and soon had a couple of Cape petrels following us off and on. Several distant albatross proved to be white-capped albatross and then in the distance we spotted a big boil up of fish with large numbers of fairy prions. Heading that way we realised there were actually several large feeding flocks of prions, with several thouand fairy prions...surely that had to be adifferent prion or two amongst them...or even a blue petrel??!! We slowed and hovered around the boil-ups hoping to spot something different, but other than fluttering shearwaters, the odd cape petrel and thousands of fairy prions there was nothing out of the ordinary. We spent the next few hours checking out more flocks of prions, with probably 10-15,000 birds seen over the course of the day. Got some nice flock shots, but as is often the case the birds never came in really close to the boat.

We fished at a couple of locations and catching mostly blue cod, plus a few snapper and terakihi had a pretty substantial haul of fish by the end of the day. The calm conditions predominated and other than adding northern giant petrel to the tally we didn't spot anything out of the ordinary, except for one 'different' prion that flew past the boat at 100+ metres giving the appearance of something bulkier and flying differently...but that was all we got as it disappeared into the distance...oh well that's seabirds for you!

We ended up heading back into Wanganui around 1600, catching up with a few more feeding flocks of prions, but nothing else unusual. As they skinned and filleted the fish a good flock of black-backed gulls followed, with a few white-capped albatross as well. Arriving back at the port we each got a pretty decent bag of filleted fish to take with us, and then a few of us headed up the Whanganui River to see if we could see the nankeen night herons at a roost about 22km out of Wanganui. Peter Frost and Paul Gibson had contacted the landowners and we were able to get down to the rivers edge with good views into the trees they usually roost in. Although we spied a couple creeping around withing the thick Monterey cypress and other conifers we weren't able to get good photos and as it gradually got darker and colder Sav and I gave up. Apparently, several birds flew and landed on open branches just as we left, but by that time it was really pretty dark, and I don't think I'd have got any decent images. I'll have to go back later in the season and spend some time there in the hope they might come out and sun themselves on the afternoon sun - which they apparently sometimes do.

I headed through to Otaki early in the morning, with the new Canon 800mm 5.6 lens safely tucked in the back of the Landie! It was a big call to spend that much on a lens, but with not a heck of a lot in it with regards to price between the 600 f4 and the 800 f5.6 I thought Imight as well go the whole hog! The 800 is a fairly new lens from Canon with the latest image stabilisation and coming in slightly lighter weight than the 10+ year old 600 it just made more sense...or so I hoped!

Sav was also heading to Wellington so he called me from Otaki to say that the probable male chestnut teal was still present at the Otaki sewage works. So I made a B-line stright for there. Arriving around 1130 I found the bird sitting on a pipe that jutts out into the pond closest to the driveway into the refuse station. Taking pictures through the wire fence was not really going to yield what I was after, so I decided to head in and see if I could get access to the works. I got 'inducted' into the Sewage works thanks to the friendly staff there and was allowed to get a little closer to the bird, and without the fence in the way managed some reasonable photos. There were good numbers of grey teal around to compare the bird to, as well as shovelor and black swan, with several black-fronted dotterel flying around the area as well. The teal is certainly a male, but I am becoming less certain of the identification as being a pure bred male chestnut teal. The photos below show a bird that has many of the hallmarks - the greenish head, chestnut breast and flanks (but not really bright enough, with more speckling than it should have), and white patch just forward of the dark undertail coverts (which are again not dark enough). However, the throat and cheeks of the bird are still in my mind too pale to be a pure bred chestnut teal - unless there is some distinction between adults and perhaps young males? I'm wondering about a grey teal/chestnut teal hybrid?

I decided I had what I wanted and decided to head further south to the Waikanae Estuary about 30 mintues down the coast. It was a stunning blue sky day with almost no wind, so perfect for picture taking, and having already been pretty happy with the 'reach' of the 800, thought it time to try it on more active subjects. For some reason there always seems to be a nice flock of superbly plumaged red-billed gulls right by the carpark at this site, so the next 'victims' were gulls. The lens is pretty heavy but is just manageable hand-holding for short periods, but I'm yet to really test this with a variety of shutter speeds to see what I can hand-hold at. However, on my tripod, it's a pretty awesome bit of kit to use. It'll be even easier when I get a gimballed head (like a Wimberly II). I was pretty impressed with the focus speed and accuracy and the LCD panel showed some amazingly sharp images - not bad for my first use of this lens! I wandered around the shore of the Waikanae ponds, turning everything that came into range possible targets. There was a small party of shovelor, 4-5 dabchick and a bunch of scaup that all succumbed to the new lens. I even took some ok shots of a flying harrier, which despite not having the appropriate settings actually came out ok. The lens really seems to be capable of keeping up with rapidly moving small ducks and dabchicks, despite my relative inability to pan and move quick enough with just the pan/tilt head on my tripod. They'll be in trouble with the Wimberly!

I moved on down to where there is a slowly growing pied shag colony in a couple of macrocarpa trees on the edge of one of the ponds. There were also a couple of pairs of black shags nesting in the tops of the trees, and several roosting little black and little shags. Interestingly, the pied shags seemed to be at all stages of breeding with birds courting and adults flying in with sticks for nesting material, while some birds were feeding well developed chicks, and a mob of recently fledged juveniles that seemed to harass every adult that came near them. The incoming adults provided interesting targets to try and capture some inflight shots and to be honest the lens performed pretty darn well. I'd have to say with a decent head and some more practice this will be a damn good lens for flight shots of medium to large targets! I even tested the 1.4x extender with the lens which on my 50D reverts the lens to manual focus (see the pied shag grooming shot below). I was reasonably happy with the performance again and I think with a little practice and use of 'live view' this may actually work quite well...when will I ever need 1800mm though (800 x 1.4 x 1.6 = 1792mm - 50D has a 1.6 crop factor)?

So settling in with the lens I managed some pretty decent photos of the shags, plus the constantly changing assortment of ducks and passerines nearby. With this lens I was finding so many more opportunities and subjects to photograph. Pied shags catching and regurgitating fish right in front of me, male mallards group 'attacking' a female, juvenile pied shags swarming adults and feeding even in the pond in front of me, and passing dabchicks all became subjects. The reach of the lens just presented so many more opportunities than a smaller lens does, with things continuously being within photographable range without even having to hardly move.

Having taken over a thousand images I headed back to the estuary where the tide had dropped. I hoped to locate some royal spoonbills in the river, but couldn't find any. However, an adult black shag in stunning breeding plumage, several more juvenile pied shags and some paradise ducks were happily within range. I also found a teal that had many of the characteristics of a brown teal, but just didn't look right. I took a bunch of shots and saw it up-ending, showing orangey legs (see the image below of it on land). Clearly this bird was not a pure brown teal, possibly having hybridised with a mallard. A fitting end to the day was when Ispooked a couple of common old starlings from bathing on a puddle. Ordinarily I wouldn't have bothered with a shorter lens, but I thought I'd give it a go this time. I sat about 15m from the puddle with the camera and tripod set up, and after about 3-4 minutes one of the birds came back and bathed right in front of me. I got some excellent shots before some people wandered right past me with googling eyes and said 'Wow what a camera' and scared the starling away. Annoys the hell out of me that people are observant enough to notice me and the camera but not think about what I might be photographing and scare everything off! Anyway, it really hit me then that, had I been using my 400 DO that day I wouldn't have even bothered to wait and see if the starling would come back, as I would have had to have been only 8m away and the bird wouldn't have given it a thought.

So in the end I took almost 2500 images between the sewage ponds and Waikanae estuary/ponds! A pretty amazing first day with the new lens and absolutely stoked with the results. Looking at the images that night at Sav's place I was just amazed at the sharpness of the images, as well as the colour rendition and superb 'look' of the images. A very happy camper!