The Birds of St James

This morning, finding myself walking to the newsagent at 7.00am to buy tobacco, I was hit with a good idea. Why not go a take some photos of wildlife in one of the parks? After all, my Dad has taken many pictures of birds in the early morning and claims great spiritual lift from it, so why not give it a bash.

So, with childlike enthusiasm I bought my tube pass and headed towards St James’ Park to catch the sunrise. Unfortunately, this being London in November, it was rather overcast, and I’d never done anything like this before, so the results were not stunning. Still, it’s a start. I also realised I’m going to need a bigger memory card in the camera if I’m going to get snap-happy. 32 shots vanish very quickly when you’re trying to catch a seagull in flight.

Nice perspective on the moorhens. This was taken by holding the camera over a fence at water level.

Seagulls flying over the lake. Of course, the camera isn’t fast enough to catch them properly, but nice all the same.

More gulls.

The geese suddenly swam out, honking as they went with their beaks held high…

And then, two minutes later, they came back in again.

Here were four birds, at this moment under the water. I was waiting to snap them as they came up but this turned out to be the more interesting picture. "Absence of Water Fowl" if you like.

And finally, a squirrel!