Surprise view

One of my favourite early shifts this morning! Sometimes I have to bite the bullet. The good news was I finished at 1 albeit not in tip-top condition. After a bite to eat I took Bud down to Skeffling. The tactic was to set my stall up and basically recover!

I keep Louise's Panasonic TZ7 in my bag as I like to Digiscope (badly) on occasions. This seemed a good time to have a play. The tide was out, way out, so I trained the 'scope on the drainage channel and took some shots. It was a dismal afternoon and the light was poor. A decent number of Shelduck were present...

80 yds

I played with different settings without much success. All taken by just placing the camera over the eyepiece hand-held. I was about to call it a day when I noticed a group of Black-headed Gulls coming in to join the Shelducks.

In the interests of realism here's my initial vignetted attempt...

A wader?

Initial thoughts always turn to default species..."it's just a Redshank". Let's take a closer look...

A Ruff! (P.152)

A surprise year bird in poor conditions. It was only present for 30 seconds.

Worth getting up early for!