Friday 14 January 2011

Herring Gull and Starling through a telescope

Here's a few pics I took from the back garden, of birds on nearby house roofs. It was interesting watching a herring Gull close up. It was about 50m away, and had no idea I was watching it, so it was behaving naturally. From a distance they look like they're just sat there, being bored, but through the telescope it was clear that they were always on the lookout for something interesting, craning their necks to get a better view:

DSC_6148 Herring Gull through telescope

DSC_6147 Herring Gull through telescope

Here's one on another chimney, also about 50m away:
DSC_6132 Herring Gull through telescope

From the look of the feathers, this one's only just become an adult - there's still some traces of the brown juvenile feathers around the head:
DSC_6112 Herring Gull through telescope

DSC_6117 Herring Gull through telescope

This one was doing some preening as well as looking around:
DSC_6123 Herring Gull through telescope

I got a few pics of a Starling too:

I'm not sure what it was finding in the chimney pot:
DSC_6163 Starling through telescope

This one was also preening:
DSC_6164 Starling through telescope

and then having a good shake afterwards to get the feathers straight
DSC_6156 Starling through telescope

Finally, I took a photo to give you an impression of the level of magnification being used. Here's some trees, and I've not cropped the picture at all. From looking at a map, I think they are about 600m away:
DSC_6104

Mike

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