This morning Bev and I took a leisurely drive across to Burgess Hill, West Sussex, so that I could visit Park Cameras in order to exchange £629 for a new (to me) Canon 100 - 400 mm IS USM lens. As was the case when I purchased my Canon EOS 70d, from this same shop, the staff were extraordinarily helpful and very honest in their opinions about the various options I had available given my budget. I am hopeful that this new piece of camera kit will result in an improvement of image quality away from the self-take trophy shots of the fish I catch. The fact that this item not only has image stabilisation, but also a very rapid autofocus system will be a novelty in itself. My ancient Sigma 170 - 500 mm lens has no such luxuries, still, just before we set off, I did get one last chance to use the Sigma when an immature Sparrowhawk caught a sparrow (?) around the garden feeding station and perched on top of the, now redundant, aviary to devour it's meal. The light was awful, yet the auto ISO facility on the camera allowed me to grab a few, very grainy, images of this event.
The weather continues to play havoc with any angling planning I attempt. The drive today just helped illustrate the scale of flooded low lying areas right across Kent, Surrey and West Sussex. All that water has got to go somewhere, thus ensuring that my local river, drains and the RMC are carrying much extra, heavily coloured, water and are totally unfishable at present. It will probably require a week without any further rainfall before I even think about a return to the RMC? However, I've got a new toy to play with, so a short drive out onto the marsh might prove to be a waste of effort for the fishing tackle, yet should allow me plenty of scope to experiment with my new lens!
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