I can tell you, this Kingfisher diving photography is frustrating to say the least. Having taken (very) early retirement I have pretty much been concentrating on this, full time for the last 10 days and this is the best I can come up with so far……… I'm glad nobody is paying me! I would be sacked by now.  I almost pulled it of satisfactorily but like lots of things in my life,  it's just not quite there! 

Today's story so far.  I went to the hide at just after 8 after an extra half of lager last night which I could have done without, so it was more of a struggle than usual to climb in to the layers.  We have had the coldest October morning for 17 years so yes, it was "tators", and my feet very quickly started to suffer in the icy water.  Never the less, there she was within 30 seconds of me sitting down and concealing myself.  The light was good and I thought, "yes I'm going to crack it".  All the usual things happened including her diving in to the tank a total of 6 times.  I looked at the review on the camera and I was pretty sure that I had got some corkers.  She went away and came back, giving me time to think it through and do some adjustments. A Wren (troglodytes troglodytes) came and perched right in front of me, something that it had been threatening to do for a couple of weeks now and I am glad to say that I took some special shots of this bird, probably a female as I have yet to hear her singing, but I hear her calling on almost every visit to the brook. Anyway to get to the point, I came home a bit more quickly than usual because I was sure that the pictures were going to be good.  I couldn't believe it, every one was out of focus. Dissaster, one or two of them had they have been in focus would have been absolute world beaters, but they weren't…. end of story.

Not liking to be beaten by anything or anyone,  I went back at midday and she gave me one last chance, arriving and diving in to the tank very soon after I had settled again. This time I really concentrated on making sure that I was at least in focus, and now I know that the slight blur is caused by the movement of the bird!

Here is the lovely little Wren.