Snettisham.Norfolk.1st February 2010.
The only decent weather wise day to be fore casted over my days off work and so I headed to Snettisham, mainly to try and photograph the 2 shore larks there, but also the waders which I love to work with. 
The tide was in on arrival, half hour behind due to a 40mph lorry-cheers, and quite choppy. I hadn't seen it in this far for a while and the waders were swarming everywhere, albeit further up the wash and over towards Lincs'. But still a great sight no matter how far away. Also did I say it was a bit chilly,no, well it was bloody chilly. Having to have my shutter finger free using mitts wasn't great, even with thermal liners. At one stage my nose actually hurt from the cold, must remember the scarf, you fool...
A merganser was busily hunting fish on the first pool and showed reasonably well, when it was above the water that is.
I never tire of waders and they always become obliging once you've taken your time to approach and work with slowly. Knots are so good to work with and one particular bird could of been a pet on a leash, it shadowed me along the waters edge at times so close I could not focus, but a wonderful experience and everything else around you just fades away to the sidelines.
All the while there I had of course kept an eye out for the shore larks, I came across them just the once and they soon flitted back along towards the chalets out of sight. But after a few hours working the same stretch, a birder gave me the nod and declared 'shore lark', in fact they were closer to me than him, I just couldn't pick them out.
And then they move and you are able to follow them. There were a few birders present so not wanting to put them both up I fired off a couple of record shots and then waited some time until a few of the birders had moved on before slowly edging closer to a more visible area. With the light behind me I inched closer and still feeding one bird actually came closer to me. Obtaining a decent set of images I left them to it. Happy with my first set of shore lark images in the bag, I was feeling a tad warmer now.
The only decent weather wise day to be fore casted over my days off work and so I headed to Snettisham, mainly to try and photograph the 2 shore larks there, but also the waders which I love to work with. 
The tide was in on arrival, half hour behind due to a 40mph lorry-cheers, and quite choppy. I hadn't seen it in this far for a while and the waders were swarming everywhere, albeit further up the wash and over towards Lincs'. But still a great sight no matter how far away. Also did I say it was a bit chilly,no, well it was bloody chilly. Having to have my shutter finger free using mitts wasn't great, even with thermal liners. At one stage my nose actually hurt from the cold, must remember the scarf, you fool...
A merganser was busily hunting fish on the first pool and showed reasonably well, when it was above the water that is.
I never tire of waders and they always become obliging once you've taken your time to approach and work with slowly. Knots are so good to work with and one particular bird could of been a pet on a leash, it shadowed me along the waters edge at times so close I could not focus, but a wonderful experience and everything else around you just fades away to the sidelines.
All the while there I had of course kept an eye out for the shore larks, I came across them just the once and they soon flitted back along towards the chalets out of sight. But after a few hours working the same stretch, a birder gave me the nod and declared 'shore lark', in fact they were closer to me than him, I just couldn't pick them out.
And then they move and you are able to follow them. There were a few birders present so not wanting to put them both up I fired off a couple of record shots and then waited some time until a few of the birders had moved on before slowly edging closer to a more visible area. With the light behind me I inched closer and still feeding one bird actually came closer to me. Obtaining a decent set of images I left them to it. Happy with my first set of shore lark images in the bag, I was feeling a tad warmer now.
