Cuckoo at Bartinney Downs

Had an excellent afternoon at Bartinney in search of Cuckoo and anything else which may be about. Well got really lucky seeing not one but two cuckoos. Unfortunately one bird had already claimed it as his patch and an in flight fight ensued and soon enough we were back to one after the intruder was evicted!!! The original and bird that remained was feeding well on caterpillars etc (bit distant for decent images) but he did come closer into the trees nearer to the camera so got some nice shots there. Also whilst scouting the area for other stuff I came across a Northern Wheatear which completely ignored me coming close for a nice shot. So a productive couple of hours and my first usable Cuckoo images (Fight one is a bit soft, caught me by surprise when they took offence to each other)

Cornish Tin Mine Evening and Nightshoot

Forecast was clear skies until midnight, so decided to take a risk and headed for the North Cornish coast with fellow photographer Alan James. On arrival prior to setting up for the night-shoot we were treated to a superb sunset. We then set up for the star trail shoot, conditions not perfect due to the moonlight but just dark enough and it actually lit p the side of the engine house quite nicely. Bit of experimenting with some additional lighting and we commenced. Start trail came out fine despite being hampered at times by condensation on the lenses that tends to build up over time (well we were trying to capture approx 120-200 30 second exposures. On completion we took some shots of the moonlight silhouetting the mines nicely. The drive home was fun with dense fog in South Cornwall I visibility was reduced to about 10ft between Roseudgen and Helston so North Cornwall was a good choice tonight.

Star Trail

Star Trail with the fisheye lens perspective corrected

Sunset

Moonlight

Single shot without star trailing

Goonhilly Earth Station

A clear night at last provided an opportunity for myself and Alan James to carry out some startrail photography at Goonhilly. The satellite dish "Arthur" (I think) was our main subject. We waited an hour or so for darkness to set in and then commenced our photography. Due to the dish being floodlit our exposure times were adjusted 200 shots in 7-10 minutes for me to get some star trail effect. After a few attempts the temperature commenced to drop away creating condensation on the camera lenses. We carried on but due to the condensation it became impossible to get as many shots as we wanted. That said, I was rather pleased with what I did get. One still image then two colour/black and white images for the blog: