Abberton Desert Wheatear… and new software!

Another quick trip out today to go and enjoy the confiding Desert Wheatear at Abberton Reservoir – a somewhat unusual location for what is usually a coastal vagrant. The Prof and I timed our arrival well to find the bird showing down to a few feet in the carpark, though it only hung around for a couple of minutes before heading off to feed along the causeway. Happily, though, I managed a few reasonable shots in that time… though if it lingers until the weekend, I may well go back for more.

This post is also the first after changing my photo editing software – I’ve just got a copy of Lightroom 4, and a book to learn how to use it! Suffice to say there’s going to be a fair old learning curve, but I’m already satisfied that the range of possibilities is much broader than anything I ever used in Canon’s Digital Photo Professional, and there’s plenty of potential.

Anyway, here are the first efforts, thanks to a very co-operative subject – what do you reckon?

I’d be genuinely interested in any constructive comments or suggestions for how other people might have edited these, or any other photos I post going forward. (Of course, whether I can work out how to make the necessary adjustments in Lightroom is another story… but at least I can try!)