The Walled Garden

Falmouth University has a secret garden tucked at the back of campus called The Walled Garden. Inside there is a hide that all Marine and Natural History Photographers can use to photograph the wildlife within the garden. Today, Jack and I too a 600mm lens and 1.5x tele-converter to the hide to photograph the beautiful birds as they swooped down to collect the seed we put out for them. This was the first time I had ever used a long lens to photograph birds on the table and in flight. I was totally gripped and cant wait to go back a refine my skills. I particularly enjoyed trying to get motion shots with a fast shutter speed.
Below are some of my images from today.

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT ABBI HUGHES

I was aiming to take a photo as this little blue tit flew speedily across my page. However, my reactions were too slow and I achieved this shot and just a green bush for the second. I like this photograph as the blue tit poses at the camera in a sneaky chirpy way. Below is the close up.

I saw many birds at the garden including chaffinches, both male and female, robins, blackbirds, goldfinches and nuthatches. 

These two photographs are of coal tits feeding.

This is a photograph of a robin in flight landing on the bird feeder. The fast shutter speed and long lens has allowed me to capture an emotive action shot. I was really inspired by this image and decided to stay for a few more hours and see what I could capture. Below shows the best image i got from the day.

Here I managed to capture the male chaffinch feeding and the female swooping down to disturb. The shapes and movement captured really excited me! I cant wait to return and try for some more action images!

See below for the species list of all animals seen whilst visiting the garden:
Green Woodpecker x1
Spotted Woodpecker x1
Long Tailed Tits x2
Greenfinches x1
Goldfinches - Flock
Blackbirds (male and female) x3
Blue Tits x3
Coal Tits x2
Nuthatch x1
Robin x2
Great Tit x3

Squirrel x1

I hope you enjoy my images.

Abbi


Location : Walled Garden, Tremough Campus
Date: 25th January 2011
Time: 12am - 3.30pm
Weather: Heacy clouds, rain showers, soft wind, with occasional bursts of sunlight through the clouds.
Map Reference: SW775345