Swanrise

Just the chance of some good light at sunrise had me scampering out before dawn. There was a golden ribbon of light on the eastern horizon, which is often an indication of underlit clouds just before the sun rises. On this occasion the lowish cloud resulted in this banding effect.

To top it all two lads were fishing nearby and when I walked up to them to say, 'Hi' I saw these two swans lying literally 15 feet from them, perfectly content at their presence. I quickly set up and managed to get within 6 feet to take this photo, although by then they were getting ready to move off. Fortunately I captured one shot where they were still. I'd had to push the iso up to 800 even to get something approaching a shutter speed/aperture combination that allowed me to have enough depth of field.