The Lincolnshire Bird Club

This afters I went looking for barn owl and with me I had my long lense upon which I very very rarely remove the body..
Driving down the lane I notice a car heading where cars normally don't go but all of a sudden a huge eruption of geese disperse into the heavens (can't count birds like people do) there were thousands of them! Pointing lense at them it just doesn't tell the story due to magnification,but I remembered I had a 17-40 in the back which I have only just started taking with me.So the glued on body is removed & attached to the small lense to catch the dramatic scenes.As im composing the picture & without yet taking a photo a shorty flys by!Panic sets in & rushing about to swap lenses back I nearly drop both bits of glass on the floor along with body & I'm convinced I put my thumb into sensor/mirror hole where lense goes,after a few slow shutter speed blurry pics I decide just to enjoy watching shorty.I found myself following it and quite a distance now from the car.A dog walkers headlights distracted me & made me look back to where I was parked only to see the barn owl majestically floating about where I pulled up.Three dear stood just staring at me as if thinking what's he doing.Anyway lesson learnt,next time I will have small lense connected to a camera body of its own!

Amusing tale, Andy - at least no harm was done.

I guess most birders have encountered similar scrapes - or near-scrapes.

I'm still sore about ruining a prized pair of Zeiss 10x50 binoculars by dropping them as I was cycling round Rutland Water. I can't bear to make public how much I had paid for them - about two months' salary as I recall.

In fact, Rutland Water has a bit of a jinx on me .At this year's birdwatching fair I lost a Canon Powershot camera - only a cheapie point-and-shoot, but it had some good pix on it. Annoying! Must be more careful in future.

Can anyone top that double-whammy for misfortune?

I've lost my dignity many times by mis identifying things in the company of proper birders. Thankfully i have not lost any kit yet.

When out in the field with fellow-birders, I've long since learned to stay silent . . . ever since I incorrectly identified a mallard in flight as a magpie flying backwards.

No, I hadn't been on the bottle! In my defence, the weather conditions had been quite murky and the light was fading.

A tip regarding photography..
When you find yourself waiting quite a while for a SEO to turn up (or anything) don't wait until there is a kestrel hovering right beside you & starting pressing the trigger to only look at the screen to check your shots to see a display saying "no card".
Use the time that you've been sat all afternoon to check your camera..doh!