Lift off

I read somewhere last week that bad weather makes for good photography. I suppose it depends what you mean by bad weather. Today was what I would normally think of as a bad weather day for photography: heavy grey clouds, low light and mizzle. The light was far too low for reasonable photographs of stationary birds, never mind a female goosander taking flight from the water.

So I thought I would see if I could turn the conditions to advantage, slowed down the shutter speed and panned the sequence of shots as the goosander, spooked by my presence, exploded from the water and flew away up river, fast and low. This one catches the moment where maximum effort is directed to lifting the body away from the sticky pull of the water surface. The motion blur hopefully helps to convey the energy of the moment.

On other matters, the bird year list hasn't moved on from 80 in the last two days. Only a visit to the coast to pick up some of the waders and wildfowl that I'm missing is going to give me another day of several new species before the arrival of the spring migrants in April/May. Otherwise, the list will crawl incrementally forward now as I pick off the common species that have eluded me to date.

Yesterday was my first New Year visit to the climbing wall. It was clear that going once every six weeks results in zero progress. So I shall go again tomorrow, and at least once a week from now on until we can get out on the rock again.