Bright intervals late p.m. as I was ready to check Fly Flatts but with and increasingly strengthening westerly gale force wind and some very heavy hail storms I decided to check out Ogden to be on the safe side, plus a flash of lightening and clap of thunder clinched it.
A strong wind blowing across the water at Ogden but nothing drastic as I walked down to the promenade. Around 40 BH gulls, 5 Commons and 1 Herring gull were on the water along with 14 Canadas, the usual Mallards and a pair of Goosander way over by the north bank. Suddenly the heavens opened and a massive hailstorm started up from nowhere with hailstones the size of golf balls, I could be exaggerating there, so it was a scurry to stand by the info centre to shelter until it passed over. Ten minutes later it was back to clear skies so back along the prom only to catch a second blast that followed on.
Luckily , after this the skies cleared and gave me 30 minutes before the next one which sent us packing home.
Not wanting to get the dogs caked up round the muddy perimeter track I stuck to the promenade taking some pics of the Dipper down in the sluice gate then concentrated on gull photos both in flight and on the water.
I set my exposure shutter speed at 2000 and iso 400 expecting some cracking pin sharp shots but when I got home and put them on the computer about 3 from 56 taken were sharp whilst the rest looked ok in the camera but they were all slightly blurry and unfit for human consumption and a look at my camera settings told me why. Squinting at my settings out on the field, being too idle to put on my reading glasses, I had my exposure setting at 200 instead of 2000 , what a nugget.
I,m surprise the pictures above came out as they did , especially the Dipper but for those I had the camera resting on the wall to keep it steady whilst the rest were hand held. What a relief that I was only playing taking gulls and not ruined shots of an Osprey coming over.
BS