So, I have technically done this prompt before, however I have a new piece of a kit for my blogs and travel. It’s my birthday this month, and one of the presents I asked for was a compact digital camera, one that was rugged enough to cope with my dyspraxic ass and that could upload photos via Bluetooth/Wi-Fi, so I didn’t have to take my laptop with me when travelling.
After a bit of research, I settled on a Fujifilm XP130, which seemed to fit all my needs. Now before I took it on my travels, I decided it needed a bit of a test run to see how it worked and to test some of it’s capabilities. I actually did a few test runs, but I wanted photos of one of my favourite subjects: birds.
Now just a disclaimer, that the picture quality is slightly blurry/fuzzy/faded because I took these photos at my grandparents, and they didn’t have a window that opened facing where I wanted so I had to take photos through the glass.
A pair of Bullfinches. The Bullfinches are a bird that I don’t get in my own garden, however I am trying to encourage more finches in general to my garden. The male is a lot more brightly coloured than the female, but both have a similar colouring. Interestingly they only seemed to appear at the feeder in pairs, with the male usually arriving first by a few seconds.
A Blue Tit. I get Blue Tits in my own garden, and I love them. I think it helps that my favourite colour is blue, so I think they are very beautiful birds. They’re one of the bigger birds in the tit family, but they are also quite shy, and very quick. They’re also very distinctive with their blue backs and yellow fronts. At home I usually see them in a pair, but at my grandparents I only saw the one.
A Coal Tit. I couldn’t bring up the tit family without including this little one. The Coal Tits are absolutely tiny, but also very quick. They aren’t as brightly coloured as the Blue Tits, being a black and grey colour, but what they lack in colour they make up in personality. Despite the fact they’re so small they tend to be the boldest, taking advantage of when predators are around to get the best spots on the seed feeder.
A Robin. The Robin is another bird that is very shy and was quite hard to photograph, as each movement I made he flew off again. The robin seemed to prefer picking seed up that had spilled on the floor rather than actually using the feeder and spent a lot of time on the grass. I always find seeing robins in summer slightly weird, as they are the bird I associate with winter.
A Greater Spotted Woodpecker (feat. a Coal Tit). If the Robin was shy, the woodpecker took it to a whole new level. I’m not sure if I’ve seen one up close before but trying to get a decent photo was so hard. When I first saw him on the feeder my excited “ooh woodpecker!” was enough to startle him into flying back to the safety of the woods. Eventually he came back, and I tried to stay as still as possible to get some okay photos of him.
Overall, I think the photos actually turned out okay and even though I haven’t tested all the features out just yet, I feel a lot more comfortable using my camera now. Even better is the fact that they actually look better once uploaded to a bigger screen rather than on the little display actually on the camera itself.
Also, in case everyone is sick of the sight of birds, have a bonus photo of a bee on a flower. One of my second favourite subjects to photograph.
A Place of Mine 