Some cracking pics as usual there Doc & Jim. Without asking you the ins and outs of your gear, do you have to spend a fortune on lenses etc. to get shots like those?!
Secret, my kit is about as base as it gets - a low end of the range Opticron scope, which is scratched to buggery. A decent Nikon Coolpix P6000 digital camera. All in, the costs would be about £600 for my kit.
I was at Hollingworth for the Pird-billed recently and was sat next to a guy with a £5k camera and a £7k lens. The gap in quality of what I took to what he took in my opinion doesn't justify the difference, much as I'd still have swapped
There will be a gap in quality. If there wasn't I'm sure he'd be pretty peed off.
Even though I say it myself I have some shots that would blow your socks off. If the light is right, and the bird is near enough, and the movement of bird and equipment isn't too much I can take an excellent shot. Of course in my world birds don't fly. Anyone looking through my album who had never seen a bird before wouldn't know they could fly!
For birds further away digiscoping is best - popular misconception is the big lens boys can photograph things further away - not so - it just makes their image bigger and brings the quality. A digiscoper scores best for birds further away.
You can get away by using the 2 second delay to avoid shake and it gets rid of the need for a shutter release cable. When I'm taking shots, I usually use shutter speed and will move up and down the range, and work it in conjunction with camera zoom and ISO setting. Sometimes it pays to zoom with the camera, but never use the digital zoom. Often it is better not to zoom at all and to have the bird as small as possible in the view, and use the computer to zoom. Other times it seems to pay to use the optical zoom to a degree - background, light etc. changes things.
A fixed wide angle telescope lens is better than a zoom. If I use my 20x60 at any setting the shots are rubbish.
So in summary, it may be your kit, it may be your settings, you may be expecting too much from a moving, distant bird on a dark day - accept at the outset that such a scenario will only ever produce a crap shot.
If you let me know what kit you have, I will try to give you the similar settings I use. I'm at work now but tonight I'll post some recent Pied-billed and SEO shots which I'm happy enough with - which is the main thing - Do I enjoy looking at them knowing I took them yes!
Re the owl, when the bird started flying around, the big lens boys moved in, and I left. just the way it is.
As an aside I missed the last five wickets last night - saw Hussey go then fell asleep, and woke to see re-runs of the last Ashes contest in England - gutted - but pleased all the same!