Then there were 3

Today was a very frustrating day to put it mildly!

I'd left the house earlier this afternoon so I could spend some more time at the artificial island because, when I inspected my photos from yesterday more closely last night, I'd been able to see that a second egg clearly had a crack in it so it was fairly certain that another chick was going to hatch that day.

Unfortunately there was not only a very blustery wind, but the sun kept appearing and disappearing every few seconds as well while I was at the island. Because of the wind I could barely keep the camera still and the sun made it nearly impossible to see what I was photographing. All I could do was keep shooting and hope for the best.

After my walk with one of the dogs from the sanctuary I hoped that I would be able to take a few photos at the park on the rare moments that the wind dropped but I struggled so much with the camera settings that I soon gave up trying and just went home.

Sometimes I think that I'm not too bad at photography but it's days like today that make me realise that I lack the technical knowledge to cope with more difficult conditions and that I really have no idea what I'm doing with a camera, especially a DSLR.

Getting back to my blip now. It didn't look like a very good shot, but it was the only one that I'd managed to take in which you can see that the Great Crested Grebes now have 3 chicks, so I fiddled with the colour, exposure and saturation on the computer until I got it to look like this. Two of the chicks are sitting on the parent's back and the third one is just behind its leg, trying to climb up its back as well. I may well be wrong with this, but I have a feeling that the youngster at the bottom hadn't been out of its egg very long yet when I took the photo.

Thank you ever so much for all the lovely comments, stars and hearts on yesterday's blip.