Out of the ordinary...

I pay my first visit to Stanpit marsh, Dorset, for the first time in 6 months, and I'm treated to something out of the ordinary.

The photograph shows a Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) being eyed warily by an egret (foreground). This wetland bird breeds around the Mediterranean, and most of them winter in Africa, so it is something of a rarity in this country.

Unfortunately, I was not prepared to photograph this bird, being equipped with just a 300mm lens, and the Ibis maintained a good distance whilst feeding, hence the rather small size in the image. I understand that once these birds appear in a region they often stay for several months.

Tomorrow morning, at high tide, I will try for another shot but this time better equipped. Whether the bird shows up...who knows.

300mm f/4 AF-S Nikkor. 1/2500 second at f/5.6. -0.67 EV compensation. ISO 400

© 2010

Come early afternoon and I decide I can't wait until tomorrow, and return to Stanpit marsh, armed with a 300mm lens and x1.4 converter in the hope of getting a better photograph of the Glossy Ibis that has taken up residence at the site.

Although I found this rare visitor to the UK shortly after I arrived it still kept tantalisingly out of frame-filling range of my lens. I take a number of shots but it seemed that I was going to only get marginally superior images to this morning. After twenty minutes or so the bird flew off . Fortunately, I had been exchanging details with another photographer at the location, and he advised that the Ibis had merely departed to another favoured part of the marsh. He was right.

Despite the rarity of this waterfowl, it doesn't appear to be shy at all, and it obligingly put on a feeding display of around fifteen minutes or so for the camera. In fact the bird approached so closely that at times it more than filled the frame and I had to back-off to get what I was after.

300mm f/2.8 AF-S VR Nikkor with TC-14E II converter. 1/200 second at f/8. ISO 400. Monopod.

© 2010