00:24I'll see you next time.
03:23Okay, so the sky is starting to brighten a little bit, looks absolutely beautiful.
03:28It's just lighting the underside of the clouds at the minute.
03:34There doesn't seem to be any chicks yet.
03:41The main part of the colony, like I said, is quite distant from me, especially I haven't
03:46got the reach with the still camera.
03:50On the crop sensor cine I can get much closer.
03:54So in the coming days I'll have a go on that.
03:57At the moment I have my 5D Mark IV Canon 5D Mark IV mounted with a 500mm f4 lens and
04:06the
04:061.4 teleconverter and I still can't get close enough to the main colony.
04:12There's a few outlier nests, more in the grasses of the meadow that I can get to.
04:22It is really surprising actually how close you can get to the birds in the hide.
04:30I've got one right in front of me who's just looking at me.
04:33I think he's the male that belongs to the nest.
04:37About 30 yards away I'd say, 30 meters.
04:42And he's come a little bit closer to investigate me.
04:47Let's see if I can get a quick shot of him actually.
05:06He's going back to the nest, that is his nest.
05:10The female sitting on it.
05:12Let's see if I can get a shot of him.
05:16It's so low in the grasses that the autofocus is finding grasses in front and behind.
05:23And not the actual grip.
05:25There we go, locked.
05:30I hope it's locked.
05:32At any rate.
05:32It has a gate in front.
05:39Oh, is it Skoko blue zone?
05:49You'll see what I mean when I say how low the birds are in the grasses, I'll show you now.
06:00which is why the camera is struggling to find focus plus the light still isn't that great
06:13so okay I'll wait a little bit longer for the light to improve
06:23and hopefully it'll start getting some better shots okay the lights the sun's just peaked over
06:30the mountain and it looks absolutely gorgeous beautiful beautiful light
06:41and you can probably make out there they're calling in the background there
06:52so it looks like they're all still sitting on eggs no chicks around at all that I've seen
06:59but like I said I'll be monitoring this over the next few days because I'm sure within the next
07:04week the babies will be appearing okay so the light was golden literally for just two minutes as the
07:15sun rose behind the cloud so it looks like it'll be hidden for a while there's a there's a hole
07:20in
07:20the cloud that it might peek through in a minute and light will come back again at the moment the
07:31activity is pretty much the birds sitting on nests the males are sort of patrolling around
07:39maybe bringing some more nesting materials to the female on the nest which she then tucks away but no
07:50feeding activity they're just sitting on their eggs and waiting I guess and the Sun has just come back and
08:03it's just beautiful light the groups just glowing in this light I've got a couple of shots of Squawko as
08:16well I think he caught a tadpole or something the video on the on the mark 4 is proving to
08:26be really difficult
08:28the which is why I've said in previous videos when I'm filming it's so much better to manual focus don't
08:39get
08:39all the fishing you don't lose the shot that way and but of course on the DSLRs that's easier said
08:49than
08:49done without a follow focus I think I've got quite a lot of shots from this morning so I'm going
09:06to slowly make my way back
09:20which is again easier said than done this is a flooded meadow so I'm actually fighting my way
09:31through the thick grass here and trying to be careful that I don't approach too closely to the um the
09:46grebes
10:09so I'll catch up with you once I'm out of the water again I'll see you in a sec okay
10:16so
10:16that was a little bit of fun this morning I got a few shots of the crested grebes mostly just
10:25sitting
10:26on their nests the males sort of patrolling in the in the long grass there's not much behavior happening
10:35just at the moment whilst they're sitting on the eggs no feeding or anything like that happening I
10:44got a shot of a squawko I think feeding and a couple of other shots not too much video it's
10:53quite hard on
10:53the DSLR because it fishes all the time so I will come back with the cine camera to try and
11:00get some
11:01better shots better video of them and I'll be keeping an eye on them daily now for when the chicks
11:08come along
11:09because like I mentioned before the period of time that they spend on their mom's back which is the cutest
11:16shot you can get
11:16basically literally lasts only a couple of days two three days and they get their independence pretty quickly and they're
11:25swimming around on their own after that so I want to keep my eye on them to try and get
11:31that shot what else before I close I also want to tell you that in October this year when in
11:41collaboration with a couple of friends of mine from Germany Brigitte and Carl we're organizing a floating hide workshop here
11:47at Lake
11:48Kerkini in Greece that'll be for flamingos and waders and there's a slim chance but there is a chance of
11:55Jackal as well going along the shoreline which would be amazing to shoot from the water if you're interested in
12:04that I'll put links in the description below most of the details at the moment are up on Brigitte and
12:10Carl's site which is in German so I will be translating that as well and put a link up on
12:18my site
12:18in English for you if that's of interest do get in touch so yeah that just remains for me to
12:26say thank you so much for following along I really do appreciate it and I shall see you all again
12:32soon bye for now
12:57I'll see you all again soon
12:58bye
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