Killing two birds
I must admit that mobile phones do have one little advantage.
So their screens are irritating and they are slow and infuriating but I do tend to have mine on or about my person most times. And therein comes their advantage – they have a crappy little camera.
I like photography and have a nice little [?] Canon which takes excellent snaps but it’s a little on the bulky side and if I started carrying it around I would not only develop a distinct list but could potentially be mistaken for a tourist, which in this part of the world could be fatal. So I tend not to carry it unless I have a deliberate intent to take a photograph.
Last evening I saw a sight which is reasonably common in these parts but is also short lived. I didn’t have my camera handy but I did have my phone.
Now that may not look like much? Just a corner of my chimney, some clouds and some dirt on the lens?
Not dirt. Rooks.
They love this time of year and on a windy evening will take to the air and take over the air. Millions of the fuckers rise up from the forests behind us. Well, maybe not millions but a lot. And they make a hell of a racket. And the they decide to rest and every branch on every tree along with overhead wires and aerials wil be swamped by them. I have lost a few aerials in the past – broken by the sheer weight of rooks.
They really were in form last evening. That picture is only a fraction of the sky and the sky was full.
I sometimes wonder how many could be taken down with just one blast of a shotgun?
Not that I would do that of course.
Guns are reserved for the tourists.
Amazing photo. And you say it’s reasonably common? Wow.
Any winter evening around dusk and if there is a blustery wind then there’s a fair chance they’ll do their thing. It’s a common enough sight to see them perched shoulder to shoulder on overhead wires forming great loops, without a single spare inch between them. Hitchcock would love it! If you suffer from Ornithophobia then I advise you steer well clear. They even make me a little nervous at times when they all swoop down over the garden.
Strangely enough, it’s dusk now and quite windy and there are only a few up there though I can hear them.
When you say that guns are reserved for the tourists, do you mean the “Tourist Shooting” season but the birds are protected?
Of course birds are protected. All wildlife around here is protected but by common consensus tourists are excluded from this protection. We have to have some kind of sport?
wow
The cameras on phones are remarkably good, considering the limitations imposed on them. I use mine all the time.
I agree about the SLR type cameras. I’ve got an earlyish model Nikon D60, which is a brilliant camera, but is a real pain to lug around, particularly if you’re carrying another lens or two as well. A few years ago, I bought my wife a Nikon Coolpix, one of the upper range, but which is small enough to fit in your pocket. It is a superb piece of kit. Takes excellent photos in all conditions, but best of all doesn’t require a brace of coolies trailing behind you to carry it.
The main problem I have with the phone camera is that by the time I have gone through the process of waking it from sleep and getting rid of all the little pop up messages, whatever I wanted to photograph is long gone. With the Canon, I just press the On button [and try to remember the lens cap!] and I’m away.
Have a watch of ‘ Gathering Rooks ‘ on BBC nature. It is quite spectacular.