David has just got back from a bird photography trip to Spain along with friend, Malcolm Bishop.  They spent 10 days visiting bird photography hides and nature-rich areas guided by local expert Yanina Maggiotto.  Yani put together a fanstastic trip for David and Malcolm, she organised the hotels, hides and various visits as well as collecting them from Alicante airport and driving them to all the locations.  Her organisation and knowledge are top class, she is highly recommended, learn more from her website: www.visitnatura.com
See Malcolm's images at: malcolmbishopphoto.wordpress.com/blog/
Over the next few weeks David will post a selection of images from the trip on a day-by-day basis.
Day 2 was spent in a bird photography hide called the Losa Hide in the mountains inland of Valencia.  It is a beautiful location.  We were told to expect Sardinian warbler, blue rock thrush, rock bunting,  black redstart,Thekla lark and more.  This is exactly what we saw and photographed.  The 'more' in this case is a dunnock doing a wing-flapping display and a male serin bathing.
On the first day Yani collected David and Malcolm from Alicante airport and took them to their first hotel near Valencia.  Along the way they stopped at a public wetland nature reserve near Alicante where they saw some local specialities including white-headed duck, ferruginous duck and red-knobbed coot.  These photos were taken from two public hides which allowed reasonably close views of some species.  In the photos we see: kingfisher, drake teal (one wing-stretching, one portrait), red-knobbed coot with neck-ring, drake shoveler (wing-stretching) and a drake white-headed duck.
Over the Christmas period David and Sarah have been entertained by an unusual resident on the wall of their house.  This is an unarmed stick insect, a non-native creature introduced accidentally with tree ferns over a century ago.  Although they are now widespread in Cornwall this is the first David has found on their land.
David and Sarah have just got back from a week in Lanzarote.  It was intended to be a walking holiday but Sarah wasn't able to do very much walking so David took his camera!  He took a 100 to 400mm lens for bird photography and a 100mm macro lens complete with underwater housing for some snorkelling photos.  These photos were all taken on a 5D mark IV camera.
The first sequence of little egret photos shows a catch.  First the egret stabs the fish and comes up with it stuck on its beak, then it shakes it off and re-catches it before swallowing it and ruffling its feathers proudly.
Further photos show a yellow-legged gull, Berthelot's pipit, a pair of black-winged stilts, two of a cattle egret and a male Spanish sparrow.  The landscape shows a one-time windmill in front of the volcanic mountains near Yaiza. 
The final two photos were taken underwater.  David had five snorkelling sessions over three days at two locations: Playa Flamingo near Playa Blanca  and Playa Chica in Puerto del Carmen.  They show a parrotfish and moon wrasse in one photo and an arrowhead crab in the other.  Snorkelling at these locations is very good, though there was a strongish wind creating a little too much turbulence.
David took advantage of a sunny day and spent a morning at the Hayle Estuary when the tide was rising to push the birds nearer to The Causeway from where all these photos were taken.
We see: a bar-tailed godwit pulling a lugworm out of the mud; a redshank wading; a lapwing in flight and two lapwings at rest, showing their wonderful iridescent colours; a flock of golden plover in flight and a beautiful male teal, these ducks are small but perfectly formed!
David is continuing to test out his new Canon R5 Mark II camera.  This week he took the camera with a 500mm lens to Helston Boating Lake to photograph ducks.  Through the day he hand-held the camera proving that the image stabilising system is very good. 
Below are two photos taken with different ISO values.  The upper photo was taken with ISO 3200 (drake mallard stretching its wings).  The lower of the two photos was taken with ISO 800 (drake mallard bathing). 
To the right are crops to actual pixel size from each of these photos.  This allows us to see the level of noise exhibited at these two ISOs without applying any noise reduction software.
The noise at ISO 800 is slightly smoother and less noticeable but the photo taken at ISO 3200 is surprisingly sharp and the noise is very fine grained making it quite acceptable.  Really there isn't much to tell between the two, so this should give the confidence to capture more action shots with faster shutter speeds whatever the level of light.
David had a day out with friends at Tehidy Country Park to continue testing his new Canon R5 mark II.  One function on this camera is the ability to create focus-stacked images. 
The top two images below (penny bun boletus and orange pore fungus) were taken by focus-stacking 20 images with the focus step set to '2' (out of ten on the scale) with apertures of f5.6 and f11 respectively.  The 20 photos are taken as RAW files but the single stacked image is a JPEG.  The processing of the image in camera seems to be pretty good, not infallible but probably as good as the available software and it certainly saves a huge amount of time.  This is a function that will prove very useful.
After lunch David decided to try using a higher ISO than he would normally use.  These two bird photos (drake Mandarin and black headed gull) are taken using ISO 1600.  The results are good, better than they would have been on the 5D Mark IV. 
The autofocus continues to impress.  Once on a subject it tracks the eye very well.  David also took some video, shooting 2K at 100 fps which gave pleasing results. 
There's much more to learn about this camera!
David has been waiting for his new camera for a few weeks and finally got it last week.  It's his first mirrorless camera, a Canon R5 Mark II.  For the first trip out David went to Helston boating lake and then Lizard Point. 
At Helston he took some photos of various ducks just to get used to the new focussing systems, the new camera has too many options and functions!  A pair of coots put on a performance for him, fighting quite close to the edge of the lake.  David underexposed to keep detail in the whites and the camera was good at recording detail in the dark areas.
At Lizard David photographed a young kestrel hovering in the lovely evening light.  Occasionally some choughs put in an appearance, resting on the roof of a nearby house.  Again the camera did well with shadows but it seemed to perform less well with the highlights of the kestrel and magpie despite the exposures being correct and light very good.
The magpie looked sensational, what an amazing and under-rated bird this is!
Overall the camera focusses very well, once locked onto the subject, and the frame rate is incredible.  It is enjoyable to use and will give opportunities for action photos that the older DSLRs would miss.
David and Sarah have just been away for a couple of weeks in their motorhome.  They went to The Mendips, staying at Cheddar, Chew Valley and Berrow.  The weather wasn't great but there were a few evenings when the light was suitable for landscape photography and they got really lucky with a crisp, clear, calm morning for a hot-air balloon flight.
The photos below show Cheddar Gorge; Uphill Marina; the inside of a hot-air balloon when it opens to release the air (not during the flight!); a view of fields and hedges from the balloon in the early morning sunlight (the shadows were lovely); a view of Dolebury Camp (as well as Cheddar Reservoir far left and Brean Down in the distance) and finally a view of Cheddar, its reservoir and another hot-air balloon (there were three flying together loosely).
With calm weather forecast, David arranged to take a friend out for a dawn shoot at Windmill Farm, on The Lizard, where he found several common blue damselflies and a common darter in the dew.  The calm conditions were great for macro subjects.  David experimented with backlighting to get an interesting bokeh.
This will be the final posting of images from David's epic summer trip to Scotland.  These photos were taken during a stay near North Berwick. 
The plan was to visit Bass Rock and the Isle of May but Bass Rock landings were cancelled this summer so David was left with a day trip to the Isle of May (photos show a puffin with sandeels, a pair of fulmars and a female eider) and some photography on the dunes at Yellowcraig.
Luckily he found some fairly obliging roe deer to photograph as well as flowers, including the viper's bugloss, and views, particularly from the beach looking towards the island of Fidra.
Another chapter from David's Scottish summer trip.  These photos were taken in The Cairngorms.  The scenic photos show Lochan Mor, near Aviemore; a view of the Cairngorm mountains and the River Spey, also near Aviemore; and a photo of fragrant orchids at Invertromie Meadow, Loch Insh RSPB reserve. 
Following on from these we have two photos of ospreys fishing (the first one missed its catch, the second caught a trout).  The flowers are creeping lady's tresses, twinflower and yellow bird's-nest.  The yellow bird's-nest is a myco-heterotroph, taking its nutrients from a fungi underground.  Isn't nature remarkable.
In a bit of a break from the Scottish trip here are two photos that David has taken in the last couple of days.  Both of these were on his smallholding.  On the left is a wasp spider, this is the first wasp spider recorded on the smallholding, a very exciting find!  On the right are three hazel sawfly larvae munching on a hazel leaf.  They make wonderful shapes when they wave their tails to deter predators.
From Morvern David travelled across Scotland to the Black Isle with the intention of photographing bottlenose dolphins at ChanonryPoint.  He got some photos of these as well as spending an hour or so photographing a little grebe feeding its young.  For the first time he visited a small nature reserve called Belmaduthy Dam, unfortunately it rained all day but David still managed to photograph some flora including a crowberry in fruit.
After staying on Mull, David and Sarah travelled by ferry to the Morvern peninsula where they found a lovely area for wildlife around the Kingairloch Estate, seeing forty-nine species of bird in a week and having the most wonderful experience with a pine marten! 
The photos below show a view of Kingairloch; a red deer stag; two photos of a pine marten; a male siskin and a young blue tit.
Between the islands of Tiree and Mull are the much smaller islands of Lunga and Staffa.  The top two photos show Staffa (left) and a puffin on Lunga (right).
Below these are photos taken on the Isle of Mull.  The first photo is of Tobermory and to the right of this is an otter emerging from seaweed.  Below these are a sea eagle, photographed from a boat trip and a female red deer which David encountered near Salen.  The last pair of photos show a rare insect, the slender Scotch burnet moth, photographed near Burg on Mull and a sunset over Loch Scridain from Port nan Gael.
After Coll David and Sarah stayed on Tiree for a few days.  This wasn't quite such a productive period because an unfortunate series of events back home created problems that had to be dealt with in a place where mobile reception was very patchy.  Nonetheless, Tiree is a beautiful island with great beaches and lovely machair.
These photos show: their motorhome parked near Hynish; Scarinish harbour; a common gull on the machair and the beach and machair close to the campsite where they stayed.
David has just returned from an extended trip to Scotland with Sarah in their motorhome.  They visited many places and David stayed up there even longer than Sarah!
Over the next few weeks David will publish a small set of photos from each location.  To begin with, here are some from the Isle of Coll, near Mull.  These show: Feall Bay; common sandpiper; Breachacha Old Castle; a goldfinch family with young begging for food from the parent; Arinagour harbour; a young wheatear on a piece of farm machinery.