Not what we expected

The Safari has been confined to barracks today and mostly been drinking...

Yep, we've got a bad attack of manflu, (not just bad - the worst imaginable) and after a fitful and restless night of coughing and spluttering we thought it best not to infect our work colleagues.

After several glugs of soothing liquid and a few cuppas we thought we'd try our luck with the camera through the kitchen window. Not a lot was going on and we had to wait a good while before this Greenfinch showed up.

Still a bit on the dull and dreary side giving a bit of a noisy picture. Still not too bad considering the feeders are 15m from the dirty window (really should go outside with some hot soapy water and a cloth!). That Apple has been there since the onset of the cold spell and absolutely nothing has touched it, can't put them on the ground as Frank will find them and end up with belly ache with the inevitable bowel consequences later.

Two Woodpigeons were hopping along the garden path tripping over the tangle of Wisteria and Clematis which will soon be attached to a brand new pergola courtesy of our Extreme Photographer Joiner. We couldn't get them both in the pic together.

After lunch the sun ventured out and the temperature in the front garden (out of the sun) reached the dizzy heights of 7.5°C - summer! Little Bertha was still put to work though.

We chucked a bit of stale bread on the garage roof and waited for the inevitable...didn't have to wait long. Tried some BiF shots but down in our 'hole' by the kitchen door there wasn't enough of a field of view for the camera to connect with a subject and start to fire off some shots. Eventually one of the young ones perched up after the bread had gone, possibly waiting for dessert to be served, so we had a bash at him with a variety of different camera settings.

All have been varyingly cropped and resized to about 40% and each got a little pull on 'curves' (if needed) before a final minimal sharpen (if needed), as is the case with almost all the pics you'll see  on the Safari's blog . Hand-held at 720mm, distance to subject c25m.

Where to next? Hopefully we'll be fit enough to get back to work tomorrow but it could be a bit too windy for looking to see if the flock of Scaup are still knockin around on Patch 2

In the meantime let us know if the medicine man has been required in your outback.