The weather has not been bright enough these last few days.  I long for some bright sunlight!  It's almost August and the weather is like a dull November!  Never the less, as I have got the woodpeckers coming constantly – 4 individuals –  to the peanut log I carried on and tried to photograph them regardless.  I decided to try with a Pentax prime 300 lens rather than the Sigma prime 500 because this would give me a better depth of field and the subject would be in the frame for longer, well, that was the plan at least.  It seemed to work perfectly,  I could achieve 1/4000 of a second, the minimum requirement for this very fast flying species, by putting the ISO up to 1600 and then under stopping as well, not a bad plan as this helped to stop the white areas of the bird being burnt out.  Back home on the computer, I could adjust the exposure In photoshop but the resultant photographs were now very noisy.  Using the 300 lens meant that I had to crop the image more than I would like and then the noisy factions were then exaggerated – tricky stuff this photography!  If only there was brighter light and the chance to use a lower ISO.  I did manage a couple of decent "characterful" shots though and the one above is about the best after I worked hard to get rid of the noise!

I have been reading as much about Greater spotted Woodpeckers as possible and have discovered that it is possible to separate juvenile males and females. Males have a red cap that stretches almost on to the nape and female juveniles have just a small red patch on the crown.  This is what bird photography can do, it gives you the means and opportunity to study your subject and then learn from your observations.  I will sort through all the photographs taken recently and post pictures of two individuals to show the differences.  I now know that there are 4, not 3 plumage variations in this species.  My "project" for want of a better word, has been rewarded recently because for two weeks running my pictures have been recognised as "notable" on the famous Birdguides web site. I am very pleased with this, I have now had 56 "notable" photographs on Birdguies "Photo of the week" competition and  5 winning "Photos of the Week"!