From last weekend's trip

[Bjoern Drabeck]

Hi all,

it's been a while since my last post, but I havent had a good chance to take photos of birds meanwhile.

However last weekend my dad and I went on a canoe trip (along the streams "Thaya" and "March" in Austria, a region known for its birds, esp. Storks, Kingfishers and such). We saw loads of birds, but unfortunately I couldn't use the camera while we were in the boat (I should say luckily because we capsized once in some rapids when we hit a submerged treeroot), and there werent many places where we could land...

Anyway I have taken a photo of this "Bachstelze" (I dont know the english name for it) just outside the hut where we slept. It was 7 am and the sun was just coming up, shining on its back, and I didnt have a lot of time to wait for better conditions. A couple of times the bird looked at me, but on the photos his head was then too bright, thats why I chose this one to post.

Have a look and let me know what you think (and if you happen to know its name in English I would be eager to learn that too :) )

Taken with Nikon D80, 18-200VR, 1/100s at f6.3

[Alfred Forns]

Glad your camera equipment did not get wet !!!!!!

Sure wish the bird was facing the other way, With his dark breast it does need light. It is possible to open up the shadows but there will be a price... strange looking blacks and noise !! As presented would crop some from the bottom, don't need that much room You came up close on this one !!!!

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Bjoern!
I believe that this is a pied wagtail - such a sweet little bird!, definitely one of my favourites! Al has covered the issues. Look forward to seeing more!

[Harold Davis]

hi bjoern!! i agree with nicki. think al covered all the points. keep them coming!!

[Lance Peters]

Everything covered for me as well - keep them coming :)

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great capture, good thing you didn't had your camera equipment with you on that trip !!!!

[Bjoern Drabeck]

Hi all,

thanks for your replies.... actually I didnt come up too close to the bird, it came up close to us. It has its nest in some corner of the roof of the hut where we stayed, and it kept coming back looking at us, and each time it came back it came a few inches closer... quite cute :)

To reply to the last post: I _did_ have my camera equipment with me when we capsized, but luckily I had it packed into a watertight bag... but all our bags fell out, or almost all of them, the rest fell out when we had to turn the canoe around to pour out the water. Then we had to get in quickly and paddle down the stream to catch up with our stuff floating down the river. We were surprised to see all the things actually floating and none (except for the binoculars which we lost) sinking. So we were quite lucky. Even though I knew it was a watertight bag, I was still quite shocked to see it drifting down the stream and quite worried about my equipment (for which I recently -finally- found a good insurace btw (in case you live in Austria or Germany and want to know more, feel free to contact me)).
After collecting our stuff we landed on a mini island in the middle of the stream to dry ourselves a bit and check out our equipment and casualties (one pocket camera, two mobile phones and the Swarowski binoculars).

Further down the stream we had another experience: There was a fallen tree blocking most of the stream, about 50-60cm above the surface of the water. So we thought we just pass it to the left, when we got closer we saw there was a sandbank directing the current right under the tree!! There wasnt really a place to land and walk around the rapids which we discovered quite late, we tried to row as strong as we could against the current, but no chance, it threw us straight towards the tree. We were already sure it would be another capsizing, and potentially dangerous too cause the tree was so low. In the last second I (sitting in front) threw myself backwards off the seat of the canoe onto the floor and a second later the trunk swished over my head 10cm above my face. My dad managed to slide down to the floor in time too and almost got his cap removed by the tree. In the process of ourselves trying to duck we picked up quite a bit of water in the boat again, but luckily no capsizing this time (although we were prepared better this time, having tied our equipment together and to the boat).

Quite an experience, but with these conditions I was just too afraid to take my camera out of the watertight bag while we were on the boat, hence no photos. While we were landed we never really saw much of all the birds... but it was amazing to see so many free living storks and kingfishers, birds of prey (bussards (dunno if they are called the same in english), even some eagles supposedly etc) and so on... really can recommend this area, but if you wanna take photos from a boat make sure you got a stable platform!

anyway, thanks for the feedback everyone,
all the best,
Bjoern