Bring Me Sunshine...

Several months ago I mentioned on Twitter that I was looking to upgrade my camera, and asked for any thoughts on the Nikon Coolpix P900, and for any other recommendations. I duly ended up buying the Nikon. Today another birder did likewise, and I was able to offer some feedback from my own experience. This is one of the aspects of social media that I find dead useful. I have learned absolutely loads of handy stuff from birders I am never likely to meet, simply by being part of this network of virtual mates. Anyway, that's probably for another post one day...

For now though, just look at what the P900 can do when you give it a decent bit of light to play with. All these from this morning...

My first Lesser Whitethroat of the year. 1200mm equivalent, hand-held

And going for it. Rattling away like a good 'un!

Clearly I wasn't so close that it was spooked, and in fact these are around 50% crops. I am well chuffed with them, especially that side-on view.

Also, my first Whinchat of the year. This was pretty distant, and it's a heavy crop of a 2000mm equivalent focal length, also hand-held...

Whinchat. Perfectly acceptable record shot as far as I'm concerned.

And almost finally, Wheatears again. We all know how spooky they are, especially in spring it seems, and these were definitely not crawling all over my feet. The first is at 1200mm, the rest at 1600mm, again hand-held.

A nice male Wheatear...

And again, a little bigger

And finally, two different females...

Last, but by no means least, a lovely adder...