More Crossbills on a bitterly cold morning.
01st February 2025
It’s been a cold few days looking for Crossbills up on the lower slopes of the Brecon Beacons. This morning, my latest visit, was no exception, an overcast morning to start with after some heavy rain during the night. The roads here are in a poor condition after being ravaged by the recent storms, large potholes and edge break-up are common. A nasty penetrating wind blew as I waited in my vehicle for the first sounds of the birds. After about an hour I heard their first tell-tale calls and a few birds appeared in the tree tops. I dragged myself out into the cold morning air and set up my gear on the tripod and gimbal head. I was using the Canon 600mm lens because of the reach and the supreme image quality. The Canon 100-500 f7.1 is a superb walk around lens and I can’t speak highly enough of it but when you need reach and image quality with a still relatively large aperture, you can’t beat the big primes.
I had had one or two shots of a female Crossbill but the light wasn’t the best, although the sun was breaking through so I was hopeful. You don’t get anything from wildlife photography unless you are willing to persevere, sometimes it’s boring and often abortive but you have to ‘Keep on trucking’ as they say in the trade.
I waited by the low trees that I first photographed some Crossbills in on my first visit because it’s no good wandering around looking for birds high up in the pines – looking up is never the best, eye level always, without exception, produces the best shots. If you do go wandering then you can bet the birds will appear in the place you left, you have to stick at it!
Then my theory proved correct, there she was a beautiful female bird looking at me and striking a most attractive pose.
I shot her straight away before she flew - they don’t stay long.
Another hour had passed and then out of nowhere unbelievably a male bird landed in a small Ash sapling six feet away from me. I daren’t move, and I couldn’t shoot him anyway because he was too close and also I was in shock, this just doesn’t happen! He took off and landed on the grass some thirty feet away and then flew again and perched in a small tree. I almost couldn’t believe it, I shot him quickly before he flew off - WOW!!
I hardly noticed at first, probably because of the adrenalin rush I had just experienced but it had now got considerably colder, so I decided to call it a day, because in this location as the day goes on the light starts to come from the wrong direction anyway and everything is silhouetted. I was also fairly sure the birds weren’t going to come any closer than they had in the last few minutes. I packed up and left contented with what I had, because there’s a limit and I had reached it by now.
A few more from the sessions.
I had had one or two shots of a female Crossbill but the light wasn’t the best, although the sun was breaking through so I was hopeful. You don’t get anything from wildlife photography unless you are willing to persevere, sometimes it’s boring and often abortive but you have to ‘Keep on trucking’ as they say in the trade.
I waited by the low trees that I first photographed some Crossbills in on my first visit because it’s no good wandering around looking for birds high up in the pines – looking up is never the best, eye level always, without exception, produces the best shots. If you do go wandering then you can bet the birds will appear in the place you left, you have to stick at it!
Then my theory proved correct, there she was a beautiful female bird looking at me and striking a most attractive pose.
I shot her straight away before she flew - they don’t stay long.
Another hour had passed and then out of nowhere unbelievably a male bird landed in a small Ash sapling six feet away from me. I daren’t move, and I couldn’t shoot him anyway because he was too close and also I was in shock, this just doesn’t happen! He took off and landed on the grass some thirty feet away and then flew again and perched in a small tree. I almost couldn’t believe it, I shot him quickly before he flew off - WOW!!
I hardly noticed at first, probably because of the adrenalin rush I had just experienced but it had now got considerably colder, so I decided to call it a day, because in this location as the day goes on the light starts to come from the wrong direction anyway and everything is silhouetted. I was also fairly sure the birds weren’t going to come any closer than they had in the last few minutes. I packed up and left contented with what I had, because there’s a limit and I had reached it by now.
A few more from the sessions.