More Water Rail, but Better.

Today (Sunday 5 March) I thought the light was marginally better than yesterday so I decided to go looking for Water Rail along the river again. My newish camera body, a Canon R7, has, in some respects, better focusing than my previous camera, a Canon 7DMkII. It can focus with smaller apertures/less light. I therefore decided to fit my 1.4x teleconverter to the lens for the first time in earnest. This means that the maximum focal length of the lens, 600mm, now becomes 840mm. By narrowing the field of view it also reduces the amount of light getting through so it is a trade off. As the day moved on the light got less so a couple of times I took the teleconverter off.

One of the first things I saw when I got to Denso Marston Nature Reserve was a pair of Cormorant flying along and curving in for a landing up towards Buck Lane footbridge – so I followed. Unfortunately their eyesight was better than mine and they managed to avoid me quite easily, frequently diving and surfacing many metres away. There were also plenty of Mallard, Goosander and Moorhen on the river but I managed to treat them with ignore for most of the time. There were also loads of Dunnock at the feeders, a Song Thrush and a few Wrens hopping along the layered hedges that the Friends have made.

A cold breeze was blowing around my head so I was thinking of heading for home when I spotted a little light line on the water across the other side. I thought it was a catkin floating along and raised my binoculars just to check, as I had done dozens of times. Yay! A water Rail swimming along. After lowering the binoculars it still looked like a catkin but then it climbed out onto the river bank. I followed it along the river bank for a while, several times losing sight of it. After moving up river, coming back a bit, and then up river again I managed to find it again, but then noticed a little splash a few feet up river from it….

A couple of these are 1/90s at 840mm focal length. I’m amazed that they are recognisable as Kingfisher. After this little gem it was time for home. I had a chat with a fellow photographer who was there looking for Kingfisher. Unfortunately they headed down river when I headed up river.