9 July 2008

A July day





Today we ended up in Yunokawa, on the eastern edge of Hakodate. The river there used to be a regular birding haunt but a lot of the habitat has been destroyed over the last few years (recently due to a huge construction project, a kind of shopping mall I think). I was expecting the worst but actually there were still lots of birds around. The riverside was heavily overgrown and held lots of birds. I'm unsure of the plans for the riverside, maybe the birds are making a final stand before the vegetation goes. Or let's be optimistic, perhaps they'll be left alone......

There were 3 or 4 Black Browed Reed Warblers singing in the long grass and reeds. Tricky to get a nice clear shot.......





Also around were Cuckoo, a lone singing Grays Grasshopper Warbler, Stonechat, Black Faced Bunting, Bull Headed Shrike and Kingfisher.





I like Black Browed Reed Warblers, they're kind of cute and cheeky. Their larger, noisier and commoner cousins aren't so endearing. Oriental Reed Warblers are abundant summer visitors (there are even 7 or 8 singing males on the small river near my flat) and they are especially common at Yunokawa. I still haven't managed a decent shot of one yet, here's the best effort from today.....




Still getting to grips with some of the new software on my new imac. Aperture or Adobe Lightroom? I'm still using DPP as a RAW converter and Photoshop as an editor but I need something to manage my library...............

Sorry that was a bit boring.

My wife has decided she wants a DSLR later on this summer. She has picked the 450D........so she's going to have a newer (and slightly better) one than me. Not to worry, when I've finished paying off this imac the 50D should be out. I'd better not mention that fact yet......

A bit sad Crouch has been sold. He's not that bad a player (and better than Kuyt and Voronin) to have on the bench. Benitez stuck by him when he had that awful lean patch after he arrived and then when he started playing OK and getting goals he started ignoring him. Benitez has signed 2 more players this summer but I've never heard of them and can't even remember where they're from. I'm losing interest to be honest. Still, at least Kewell has finally left.

6 comments:

  1. some really nice shots on the blog this week. I would go for Aperture but I am a mac addict. The new aperture 2.0 is excellent and faster than Lightroom. There are some good reviews comparing both on the net if you search for them.

    I have no idea what Rafa is doing...he hasn't bought anybody yet...

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  2. Hi Carmo.

    They both look pretty good. I prefer Mac too but Lightroom seems just as good. Dunno why I'm dithering about it so much though, they both do pretty much the same thing.

    Liverpool? We won't be winning the Premier League, that's for sure.....

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  3. very good shots. Maybe you can crop the last a little bit.

    I don't think the 50D will come out this year. The 40D is not even a year old.
    I expect a successor to the 5D which would, given the FF sensor, not be the best for birds.
    I currently own the 40D and I really like it. I just saw it for about 845 Euros somewhere.

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  4. Hi Markus..........I'm sorry to say it was already cropped.....

    I finish paying off my imac next summer. Maybe the 50D will be out by then. My wife would kill me if I bought another camera just after buying a new computer and the 100-400 lens so far this year. Trust me on that one........

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  5. I am sure that next summer there will be a 50D. And hopefully it will be a huge step forward from the 40D. The 40D is great, but way behind Nikon's D300 which is the camera I would by if I had to build my equipment from scratch.

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  6. I am going to have my big leap into dSLR when I go for a 40D soon. 50D with 16mp will be too much for me I reckon. I pretty to be on the middle path!!

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