Cannock Chase 2nd Bird shoot with Gillian 7th march 2012

After the success of my first trip to Cannock chase in Staffordshire , i decided meet GILL there for another shoot.  This was to be her first proper bird shoot also,  so after getting there half hour late due to traffic, and arriving in heavy rain to find the place deserted i was not happy :(     but did get the location i wanted and moments after setting up a feeding perch the blue tits were all over it,  before i had put any food out!!!!!!!!!  Amazing!

Any how, Gill arrived about 40 mins later , after really bad congestion in Birmingham!

For the first hour or so it rained on & off !  but had low,but really lovely light and managed these 2 shots with rain adding to the image :)

                                            a coal tit , love the light and rain slashes in this :)

and a blue tit

The rain eventually stopped , but  the light levels continued to be quite low all day , except for a few sunny periods!  i found it very difficult get get sharp images and was having to shoot at iso 500-800 for most of the day!

Loose sunflower hearts on the ground attracted Chaffinch and Bullfinches, along with loads of Robins !

A female Chaffinch and Bullfinch

 They are so proud looking birds these Bullfinch , and eventually a beautiful male came down for a feed but just didn't settle , but managed this very nice image of him in the tree!

At one point there must have been about 40 Great,Coal, and Blue tits in the large bush on our left all appearing to be watching us!  an  Amazing site!

A beautifully perched Blue tit!

Eventually at about midday, the " Poppits " arrived , my name for LongTailed tits , i love watching this species, so comical with their long tails waving around in the air :)

                                                     And a beautifully perched Robin :)

                      Later in the afternoon the sun started coming out and back came the Poppits :D
                                                           Sooo Cuteeeeeeeeeeeee 

The light was constantly changing all day, dont think i have ever had to change iso so much in one day!!!!!!!
        The birds were coming so close we both tried shooting with our 100mmL macro lens's

                                                                    and Gillians Great tit shot

                                                                       A Pair of  "Poppits" :)

After shooting this pair we had been told of a place to see Nuthatches , so we went for a walk to find a large fallen tree, in which we then hid peanuts for the Nuthatches to search for!   and it did not take very long!!!!!!  unfortunately they were very fast and at 4.30 the light levels where getting quite low so had to shoot at iso 1000

     they really are magnificent species!    always appear to be different colour as the light changes!

We then went back to original perch area to finish off the last half hour of what turned out to be a really great day!
The Coal,Longtails  and Blue tits were still happy to perch for us :)  they really enjoyed perching on the teasel :D

                                       We do have so much fun on our trips, so special :))))))))
                                                                Thank you Gillian :)

                         all shot with canon 5d2, 70-300is , 300mmL +1.4 x tel & 100mmL macro