Record Shot Mentality

In recent years a camera has become almost as indispensable a piece of birding kit as my bins. The difference that a modest superzoom can make to the level of pleasure I get from a typical short session in the field is out of all proportion to any inconvenience connected with lugging it about. Even so, some may wonder if having a photographic record of birds you see is that big a deal. For me it is, yes. Why? My bird (and other nat. hist.) pics serve a number of purposes. Blog illustration for one. ID confirmation sometimes. So, a couple of practical reasons right there. Also, the immense pleasure to be derived from browsing through your old birdy pics on a rainy afternoon like this one is only possible if you have some.

Very few of my bird photos look like this...

Spotted Flycatcher photographed at Cogden on 14th September.

Generally I do not get frame fillers like the above. That's okay by me because mostly I much prefer a nice context shot, with the bird a relatively small part of the image. Though sometimes I do take it to extremes...

Two Ringed Plovers (bottom left) on Cogden Beach. In the background top right is the wooden chalet at Eype Mouth that featured as the murder location in Broadchurch series one. It is well over 4 miles away.

That was Monday morning. Birds as follows: 6 Chiffs, 1 Blackcap, 4 Wheatears, 1 Whinchat, 12 Teal W, and the 2 Ringed Plovers. Hardly bursting with activity. Which is probably why I took this photo...

Very much a record shot: Whinchat.

One other function of the camera came into play that morning: scope substitute. Way up the beach was a small group of gulls and Cormorants. Through bins a couple of the gulls had that white-headed look of a young Casp - though I was 99% sure they were Great Black-backs, and they were - but was that a Goosander sitting on the beach too? Surely not?! No, it wasn't. But I took a photo anyway, so that I could peruse it at leisure...

A hefty crop tells me all I wanted to know. Though I hadn't noticed the Herring Gull wrestling with an eel bottom right, and binoculars would never have bagged that sinensis 'Continental' Cormorant (arrowed). Value!

Yesterday afternoon I had a short walk at Cogden after work. Mainly I stuck to an area that doesn't get looked at much. Apart from a constant stream of hirundines passing west, absolutely nothing of note. So instead of birds, a couple of scenic shots...

Taken from almost the top northwest corner of Cogden, looking east. The Burton Mere reedbed just behind the beach top left. Houses at West Bexington in the distance. Shows the Cogden habitat well. Not all of it is accessible though.

Same viewpoint, looking directly along the coast. Burton Mere reedbed and fat end of Portland top right; trees surrounding Othona property on the coast road top left. A ton of very desirable habitat.

The first time I've tried the 'panorama' function on the camera. Not sure whether it was worth the bother though. Trees far right are just outside the eastern boundary of Cogden recording area.

This morning I had time for a quick, mid-morning visit to Cogden. Within 15 minutes I'd bagged 4 Yellow Wagtails, a Redstart and a Firecrest. The Yellow Wags were the first I've seen this autumn. The Redstart was also my first this autumn, as well as the first autumn bird anywhere in the West Bex/Cogden recording area apart from a random late-July male. The Firecrest was my second. In short, I thought I had jammed in on a fall of some kind, and was about to fill my boots. Wrong. Apart from a few Chiffs and Blackcaps, and a lone Wheatear, that was it. Record shots as follows...

Yellow Wagtail. As record shots go, this is quite a good one...

...while this one is very much worthy of the name. Blurry Redstart. I never saw it again.

Finally, the Firecrest. On occasion my photography skills desert me entirely, and I end up getting an utterly hopeless image. But even then it is sometimes possible to rescue the situation and extract the delightfully awful record shot that posterity requires...

How it started. Firecrest, as it looked straight off the camera.

How it ended up.