Carless and hungover Sunday

2 of the commoner local birds. Bull Headed Shrike and Oriental Reed Warbler. These were taken this afternoon with the 70-300 lens (I decided it wasn't worth taking the 100-400 lens with me, a mistake as it turned out). I had a nasty hangover after knocking back the equivalent of 8 or 9 pints last night. Plus we don't have the car after my wife reversed into the front window of one of the local convenience stores.

The Shrikes and Warblers (and the Red Cheeked Starlings) are just about the only birds to be photographed near my flat in the summer months. There are usually 2 or 3 pairs of Shrikes and 6 or 7 pairs of Warblers along the river. The latter species are especially noisy and are abundant summer visitors across the region. I'll have plenty of chances to get better pics I hope.......



Ditto the Shrikes.....





Not much else around. The first Spot Billed ducklings were born a couple of days ago and this Japanese Skylark is the first halfway decent shot I've managed of the species.



The 70-300 seems very light compared to the white monster I've been using most of the last 6 months, it almost feels like a toy. Still, today's heavily cropped shots weren't too bad.

Not much else happening in the last few days so here are a couple of random shots of nothing in particular.





I'm too hungover to bother cloning out the dust spots on the sunset shot.

Caught a bit of the Cup final last night...........didn't look a terribly interesting game I have to say. I'm listening to Test Match Special at the moment, I miss watching live cricket. I have to put up with Geoff Boycott's 'insights' though......

So I hope we get the car back soon. The Champions League final should be worth watching, dunno if I'll be watching it live.........