Redwings and Canon eos 7d video test.

Well finally it seems winter has arrived. Tuesday morning was greeted by a heavy frost and in came the Blackbirds, we have not had any Blackbirds in the garden since early October now after just one frosty morning the number shot up from 0 to 9. Also today 3.12.09 came the first sighting in the garden of the wintering Blackcap and its a male. When I was doing the live webcasting for Autumn Watch 2 weeks ago, I received an e mail from Tom Arnbom in Sweden to say he had still got Redwings in his garden with Chaffinch's as well, he also mentioned how mild it had been in Sweden meaning of course that these birds had not left yet. Also he did say he had Blackbird singing in his garden 4 months too early, or indeed too late depending on which way you look at it. Just after the frost I went for a walk to Portbury were around 100 Redwings were gathered in the scrub areas. They were very skittish as usual and difficult to get close too. In the cold morning air there was almost frenzied feeding from them as they were striping the last of the Hawthorn berries from the bushes. Here's a couple of pictures I got with the 7D and with no sun on them again I was using high ISO to keep the shutter speed up.

I have been also watching a couple of Short-eareds at night, this is me now returning to an old subject I studied some years ago and that is how much nocturnal hunting is achieved by Short-eared Owls on their wintering grounds. Its early days yet but returning to all the old sites that I had previously studied back in the 1980s and 90s has proved very interesting. More on this as the winter progresses. I have had quite few emails from you about the new camera, the Canon EOS 7D. In particular about testing the video side of the DSLR. I must say I have not had time to give the video part of this SLR a really good go over. Today I did find a Swan or two so I quickly took some footage them and so here is the result.

Edited in Magix pro 15 hence the slow motion which was deliberate on my part.

Here is another short bit this time in normal motion, there is no sound, I cut the sound out, there was far too much wind (no not mine, the natural wind) you can make your own mind up about the quality I'm very pleased with it and can think of many uses for this addition to a DSLR.

Hopefully see some of you at the weekend at Folly Farm for the Owl prowl, to the rest of you keep the emails coming, and BFN.