Glimpses of Light

Many of you will have probably guessed from my recent posts that the light, which is the essence of photography, has been in drastically short supply over the past few weeks. There have been the occasional bright days and moments but typically they have coincided with me being otherwise occupied with work. There are few things more frustrating than looking at the sunlight pouring through the office window on a week day only to see the weather suddenly flick to dark grey gloom for the following entire weekend. To try and overcome these light issues and get some photographs taken, I have tried to keep my camera with me as much as possible. This has been mainly to try and stack the odds in my favour when those glimpses of better light do occasionally show. So this Blog post is a compilation of species arising from snatched moments of light since the beginning of the year.

I managed to find a couple of Bar-tailed Godwits at the edge of the ebbing tide at the end of the road where I live. A quick dash down the hill was made as the sun briefly appeared.

A large flock of Bewick's Swans, which are unusual for my local area, gathered on some flooded agricultural fields. These wild swans are a very different proposition for photography than the loaf munching variety on the local park lake. They are very nervous birds and required a careful approach.

While on the topic of swans I stopped briefly on the way home from work last week to find this Mute Swan in the fading embers of sunset. Its good to see the day lengths are slowly starting to draw outwards.

I caught up with one of the Common Buzzards that lurks near the office. Perched in its regular location during a lunch hour last week. They are certainly a species of habit and routine.

I have been keeping up with the various Corvids that I love to photograph and kept my couple of feeding sites going. This has the benefit that the birds quickly appear, after I do, which is ideal for my often very brief visits.
A Jay taking an apparently perilous dive towards the ground.

A rather tatty looking Magpie coming in to land. I suspect this one has had a few run-ins with the local crows. It is interesting at these corvid feeding sites to watch the pecking order between species. At this particular site the order of dominance is crow, magpie and then jay.

A gentle touch-down by a Rook.

There has been an increasing presence of Wood Pigeon at one of the feeding sites. Some of which are starting to look very well fed!

To finish off this post of making the most of limited moments of light, an early morning encounter with a Meadow Pipit on the beach.

The signs of Spring are on the way with the first migrants in the form of Northern Wheatear arriving in the south of the UK heralding the sign of an exciting bird photography days ahead over the next 3 months.

End of the Year

As the weather, but more importantly the light, has been so grim over the last week I have been busy wading through my backlog of images. It is good to have got this finally finished before the end of the year and the double hard drive back-up is whirring away beside me as I type this.

I thought I would use this post to give a quick overview of my year and post a selection of images processed from the backlog. For me it has been a productive photography year with 118 bird species and 5 mammal species photographed including 17 species that have not been in front of the lens previously.

There have been so many wonderful moments shared with wildlife that its hard to pick out some highlights but the three that stand out are:

• The entire trip to Norway in the summer. Wonderful birds, landscapes and people;
• A very early morning in Spring, during a visit to Hampshire, which produced three new species in the space of a few hours including an unforgettable encounter with a Dartford Warbler;
• Photographing Leach's Petrels in severe onshore winds with my friend Steve. Such a privilege to see so many of this ocean wander at such close quarters.

Before posting the last images of 2010, I would like to send the warmest thanks to all those that have taken the time to read the blog and provide feedback. 2011? who knows what may appear in front of the camera but I am looking forward to it already :). So I will wish you all a Happy, Healthy and Successful New Year.

Fieldfare listening for worms below.

Mediterranean Gull in flight

Young Green Woodpecker on a gravestone. These are such a tricky species to photograph and hopefully I will do better with them in 2011.

Common Buzzard photographed by my office during a lunch hour.

Female kestrel who is a regular visitor at one of my sites.

Mute swan

It is amazing how much fun you can have with a large puddle and a flock of starlings.

To finish of some rooks and jackdaw.

I have been putting nuts out for these birds to help through the recent cold weather. I think this photo shows how hungry the birds have become.

Please remember just because the snow may have gone, if you have been feeding the birds, then please continue as they need to rebuild up fat reserves and I am sure we have not seen the last of the cold weather this winter.

Diversity is the Spice of Life

One of the great joys of photographing birds is the diversity of species that may be encountered nearly anywhere. I am fortunate of living in easy access to a wide range of habitats, from hills to farmland through to woodlands and coast, that in turn support a varied bird fauna. I thought I would put together a compilation of recent photographs taken in a wide range of situations with a bit of background on how the photographs were achieved.

Starting with woodlands, a well placed feeding station can attract a wide diversity of birds, particularly during the cold winter months when the small birds have a need to supplement their energy supplies. The setting up of a feeding station requires careful consideration in terms of light direction, placement of perches and the hide but the results can be very productive. The Blue Tit is a common bird but shows some stunning colours in Spring plumage.

It is difficult to dislike Long-tail tits with the unique shape and colours and comical antics. They usually descend to a feeding station in groups but can be quite difficult to photograph.

A common woodland feeding station visitor is the Nuthatch which can usually be heard long before they arrive with there almost electronic sounding call.

Moving across to the Farmland habitat, the office where I work is surrounded by fields and currently hundreds of bleating lambs. The are a number of birds that are resident that allows me to undertake short sessions during my lunch hour. These include a large mixed flock of rooks and jackdaws and the occasional buzzard.
The opportunities to photograph the wary buzzard are seldom but a joy when they happen.

Photographing rooks under the lunchtime sun presents some tricky exposure issues.

A Jackdaw taking carefully landing on a fence post.

Moving down to my local coastline. A Black-necked grebe was being report as taking of temporary residence on one of the large local marine lakes. It proved a tricky customer to photograph but perseverance won out eventually. I ended up lying on the ground on the lake margin and was fortunate when the bird with the spooky eyes popped up a close range after one of its foraging dives.

I also caught up with the second winter Mediterranean Gull that has been lurking locally for a couple of months. It is rapidly progressing towards full summer plumage. It was not quite in summer colours when I found it and I hope it will stay around for another couple of weeks for the feather transformation to become complete.

I will finish this post with some waders who will be soon heading northwards to their breeding grounds where I hope to catch up with some of them again with a trip I have planned to Arctic Norway in June. The following photos were taken during the recent big spring tides when the birds are forced to take refuge on the local sea defences at high water.
The rare sight of a stationary Sanderling

Wading Redshank

Resting Ringed Plover

It is not until the light is at the right that you can see where the Purple Sandpiper gets its name.

One Less Squirrel

Before I start posting photographs from this new year, I thought I would share an interesting encounter I had with a buzzard just before Christmas. An early present.

I will warn you now that the photos below are quite graphic in their content of a squirrel being pulled apart and therefore those of a sensitive nature may wish to skip this post. However, the photos serve as a good reminder that nature is the big harsh game of survival. Eat, drink, avoid being eaten and breed are the basic rules.

So a quick introduction to the predator, the Common Buzzard. I understand their main prey is rabbits but they are quite an adaptable bird and I have seen them happily feeding on earthworms in a horse paddock. They apparently have such good eyesight that they can spot a rabbit a mile away. Not much hope you would think for a photographer then to get anywhere close to one!



Predator with prey.

The bird then started feeding pointing away from my position.

It suddenly stopped and looked back straight towards me, despite staying motionless and silent, and I thought for a few moments it was game over and the bird would leave. However, the distraction that caught the attention of the bird had been a passing sparrowhawk.

The squirrel lunch then resumed and started getting messy.

After about twenty minutes the bird away with the remains leaving me feeling as a privileged witness to this moment.

Lunch Hour Buzzard

I often take my camera to work with me which allows me to pop out for my lunch hour to try and take a couple of photos. This is not always successful but certainly beats sitting at the computer eating a sandwich and restores my energies for the afternoon's work. I had noticed a buzzard that kept perching on the telegraph poles on the road leading up to the office and so decided to try and get a couple of pictures.


Being given the 'eye'. Enough to strike fear into any rabbit but fortunately I am probably a lot less edible.

Gigrin Raptors

I was passing close by to the Red Kite feeding station at Gigrin Farm around feeding time the other day, and so thought I would drop in to see if there was any action to be had with the camera. There were quite good numbers of birds coming into the free food hand out along with buzzards and ravens. A number of the birds were looking quite tatty as they were still going through the moulting process. Unfortunately the light was poor, as has been typical recently, which ruled out achieving any decent sky flight photos so I decided to try and get photos of the birds as they dropped in to grab some of the scattered beef pieces. Its always difficult photographing birds against a 'busy' background as it tends to drive the focus systems on most camera bodies into overdrive but was made even more difficult by the lack of light and the tendency for the kites to swoop down very rapidly without much in the way of warning. For those who have not seen red kites feeding they very rarely land and Gigrin Farm is a superb place to watch these acrobatic birds in action.

Starting with some buzzards

Much as I would have liked to pjotograph some ravens it seemed pointless trying to photograph a black bird in such low light conditions and so to some of the Red Kites. They are such photogenic birds.

This certainly will not be my last visit to Gigrin and I intend to return later in the year when they have finished moulting and hopefully the sun is shining.