April 7th  

Dorney Wetlands

Dorney is probably one of the half a dozen sites around the county where you can almost be guaranteed to get little owl. This one is in an ash tree just as you near the first bridge. It usually lets me get the scope on it and camera ready before flying off to hide the other side of the hedge and into Bucks. Today it let me get 'just not quite close enough to get sharp frame-fillers'. 

Maybe spring is slow or the site is less attractive to waders than it used to be but there's been a poor tally of birds here so far. There were double figures of RP & LRP here in 2003/4 and this year the most has been 4-5 ... even wheatear numbers have been low. It is still the best site in the county for wheatear and whinchat and if they're not dropping here they must by-pass Berkshire altogether

CAMERA : E995V1.6
METERING : SPOT
MODE : A
SHUTTER : 1/23sec
APERTURE : F5.1
EXP +/- : -0.3
FOCAL LENGTH : f31.0mm(X1.0) eyepiece @ 30x
IMG ADJUST : STANDARD
SENSITIVITY : ISO100
WHITEBAL : AUTO
SHARPNESS : OFF
QUALITY : FULL FINE
SATURATION : +1
FOCUS AREA : TOP        LATEST