The day was rather dull for more camera practice, but I had to take it with me on the off chance when I went to open the hides. At Ivy North I could see no sign of the bittern in a scan across the vegetation and up and down the channels, so I got up to leave and glancing back there it was. So I had to try and see if I could get a picture, although it showed well, the poor light made things difficult and this was my best result.
bittern at Ivy North hide
All things considered I am reasonably pleased with it.
I ran the moth trap last night and it was certainly mild enough for moths to be flying. Most of the moths flying now are winter moth, however these rather rarely get attracted to moth traps and there were none in the trap. Two species were caught, one a species that over-winters as an adult, the chestnut.
chestnut
The other was a pale brindled beauty, another winter-flying species with wingless females, just like the winter moth.
pale brindled beauty, male
Pictures again taken with the new camera and I think the macro works well. So all in all as a multi-purpose camera for taking blog pictures I think I am happy with my choice. It will be interesting to see how much better the images are on a day with good light.
Finally and perhaps most impressively of all, Pondcam caught a water shrew on camera! These fantastic little mammals are rarely seen but spend much of their time underwater hunting aquatic insects. As they do so their thick fur traps a film of air making them look silver. So they appear as a frantic, silver creature surrounded by a cloud of leaves and sediment that they kick up as they vigorously swim through the shallows.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 
What camera did you get?
I went for a Lumix FZ330 in the end, quiet an “old” model but I got it at a reasonable price and seemed as though it would do the job. That said there are a lot of very similar models out there, so I cannot say if I made the best possible choice.
thanks for letting me know model, it certainly takes nice pictures
That’s an excellent shot of the Bittern, well done. I would love to see a still from the video cam re the Water Shrew?
Unfortunately we are not able to record the output at present, when we update it might be possible to get some pictures to post here.
Maybe it would have been a true colour picture if the windows were clear!
An interesting comment and perhaps it shows the limitations of the camera as it was taken through the open window not the one way glass!