Lovely bird the Great Crested Grebe. We have a pair at the local country park, I’m hoping to get some good shots of them when I get my new lens. OM Systems 150-600 on order, can’t afford the 150-400!
Tim
I think the bottom one is a bullfinch?
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That may be true, but according to Google, the Swedish name “Domherre” translates to Canon?
A Male Bullfinch in fact.
Good, I’ll change the name then.
Thank you 
Indeed it is… these were shot with a 800mm lens sitting on the river/lake bank sitting on the ground.
Bjorn you are right when you referred to it as a Domherre. Looking through my copy of Lars Svensson Identification Guide to European Passerines you would not be mistaken if you had called it a Gimpel, Bouvreuil pivoine or a Punatulkku either.
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Yes, Gimpel is the German name, Bouvreuil pivoine the French, Punatulkku the Finnish and Domherre the Swedish.
Definitely a juvenile
…before getting his white head. An extremely rare sighting that close and I was very thankful to the two women and their dog who managed to interpret my signal and kept their distance quietly while I was taking the pictures. A hawk landed on the same tree and the two compared sizes of beaks and talons before departing amicably. Across the river there is a bald eagle nest where a mama is sitting on her precious eggs while the father is enjoying a thoughtful perch:
It would be real nice to have something more powerful than my 300 mm oldie.
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I bet the 800 mm is pretty heavy. I got this one with my Pentax K3 III and the 300mm F4 so about 463 mm in full frame language. I was lucky as it just popped up right by me.
Tim
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Nice… you need to get down a bit lower 
. … and yes they do just pop up out of seemingly nowhere from the water. These and cormorants must be terrifying if you are a fish.
The 800mm f/6.3 is not too heavy (2.4 kg), and it is fairly easily hand holdable. It uses a phase Fresnel front lens which keeps the weight significantly down compared to a traditional lens.
That’s not too bad at 2.4 KG, the OM Systems 150-600 comes in at slightly over 2 KG as it’s a reworked Sigma. I know what you mean about getting lower, however this time I was on a wooden pier out in the reservoir with the water lapping through the slats.
Tim
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You guys must all work out the gym!
My 100-500 with the 1.4x is about 1.5kg.
It’s about the light though isn’t it? I can put my 1.4 on my 800 f/6.3 to get 1140 which is great for bird wild life but that is f/9 which really for the best times of day to shoot is too dark unless the subject is still.
I wouldn’t call myself particularly fit, but like most of us I try and do regular /semi-regular exercise… including working out with my 800mm 
I mostly agree, but mirrorless has changed everything. Yes, I’d love the depth of field that a 600mm f4 gives, but I prefer handheld, I don’t have £14k, and I’d miss the zoom, especially when grabbing a bird in flight.
These new lenses are liberating, and work very well in low light.
Yeah the Z 800 f/6.3 S is between 5K and 6K. Yes a lot of money, but not really in hifi terms, and less than the very un hand holdable super exotics… . but mine gets loads of use so is worth it in my opinion, as living where I do there is a wealth of wild life to photograph where its range is perfect. But mirrorless hasn’t changed light requirements, but absolutely makes tracking fast moving and flying birds a lot easier. I use a Nikon Z8 and Z9.
The way my R3 can focus and track in low light is quite incredible. It’s a silly camera for me to be honest, but a once in a lifetime chance, and I took it. Digital SLRs were useless if using lenses with max apertures of f8 etc, no autofocus.
I’m not tooooo far from you. Lackford Lakes is half an hour away, Lakenheath Fen and Minsmere about an hour. And yes, we are spoilt, and generally it’s all improving.