Lar Monday, a friend and I decided to visit Lowestoft to photograph the male Desert Wheatear and the first winter Red-backed Shrike, both of which had been showing very close.

Arriving at the Links Road car park we could not resist a shot of the bathing Meadow Pipit in one of the car park puddles.

Then the walk along the promenade - and no Desert Wheatear. No-one had seen it although it was seen late the day before. We walked on to the turbine compound where the Shrike was last seen - and no Shrike. A local said that he had seen it go to roost a distance away and no further sign since. Another one down to experience!!! Purple Sandpipers?

We arrived at Ness Point at high tide and the normal rocks for the Purple Sandpiper were under water but it did not take long for a couple of them to fly onto the rocks beside the promenade and after a short time became very showy.

After a fruitless afternoon we photographed a couple of Mediterranean Gulls in the Links car park but the light had gone and white birds on a grey background ai ISO2000 do not make for attractive images so I have refrained from posting them.

There was nothing out of the ordinary to test the 7D MK2 although it performed perfectly. Perhaps the only item of note relates to the software. Only Canon DPP4 can read the Raw images from this camera so I have been forced to use it. Arthut Morris, the well know American bird photographer, who has been testing the 7D MK2 and DPP4 said that he finds better colour rendition from DPP4 because it can read certain algorithms in the Raw files that are not available to other software. Whether this is correct in practice or not, I cannot say but I have certainly noticed that my images require very little editing in terms of contrast and colour rendition compared with previously. There must be something in this as I cannot believe for one moment that my skills have dramatically improved overnight.

Something to watch for the future.

More images from this day in the Recent Additions section.