Looking for Hammers

Yellowhammers are beautiful birds but relatively thin on the ground these days in my local area, so I decided specifically to head south down to Staffordshire to try and get a few photographs of them. Thinking about it the last time I managed to get one lined up in the viewfinder was back in 2006 up in Scottish countryside. I had the Canon 50D for company on this session as the 1Dmk3 was back in Canon's repair centre having its latest recall 'fix'.

I did have my trip all planned out, a nice piece of hawthorn trunk in the car boot and some sun flower seeds to get the birds where I wanted them at this popular public feeding spot. However, my plans were quickly put on hold shortly after arrival when another photographer turned up and promptly scattered about 2kg of seed all around the place, thereby removing any chance of getting the yellowhammers on my piece of wood. The joys of photography is busy public places!

There were plenty of other birds around to photograph while I waited for the yellowhammers that included Long-tailed tits.

There was also an occasional visit by the scarcer Willow tit, which are always a pleasure to see.

The yellowhammers were looking stunning in their spring plumage and some careful exposure was required to not 'burn out' that bright yellow head.

Having not spent much time in the company of yellowhammers, it was interesting to see them at close quarters with their unusual shaped beak. The top bill being very thin compared to the lower one.

Beautiful birds but I still think they would have looked better on the piece of wood I had taken with me, rather than hopping around mopping up all those seeds that had been scattered on the ground. No doubt I will return one day to give them another go.

Up with the Larks

One useful bit of equipment for photographing wildlife is a good alarm clock, although I always seem to wake up well before the early hour mine is set to go off. Its great feeling to be out at first light on a spring dawn, with the sun rising and the clear air filled with bird song. On one such recent morning I headed out locally to photograph some skylarks and was back home by the time most people were just rising to their morning weekend newspaper.

What these birds lack in the way of bright colours they certainly make up with character and a facinating species to watch at close quarters.

After a song flight, they often land on fencing surrounding the field , and often continue to posture, display and call.

However, surely these birds at at their best in their ascending flights accompanied by that liquid song. A reminder that spring is here, even if the weather often forgets it!

B.O.T.M

Just to let you know
the Wildlife Photographic Journals has been selected for this month's BBC Countryfile Magazine as their 'Blog of the Month'. Of course I would like to thank all the readers of the Blog for their support.

While I am on the subject of publications a few of my photos have recently found their way in to print. Firstly a number of my bird photos appear in the CAWOS Winter and Breeding Atlas. The results of this ground breaking 3 year study is not for light bedtime reading as its a weighty volume of 675 pages. This comprehensive population monitoring study provides some interesting insights in to the changing plights and expansions of birds in the area. One of my reeling Grasshopper warbler photos also appears on the cover of the CAWOS 2007 Annual Bird Report.

Keeping with the local theme, journalist John Dempsey has recently produced a colourful glossy pocket book called 'Wild Merseyside'. This is illustrated throughout with photographs, including a few of my bird, seal and hare photos, and details the great diversity and spectacle of wildlife that can be found around the Mersey estuary and the best places and times to watch it.

I would like at this stage to be able to show you some jay flights photographs but I am currently calling that an on-going project! However, there all always a couple of bonus birds to be photographed while waiting between jays.

Male pheasants battling

and magpie putting on the airbrakes

Project J

I always like to have a mini photography project on the go, as it increase your options and opportunities. My latest project is to try and get some photographs of Jays in flight. Jays rate right up at the top of the list as one of my favourite woodland birds. Beautifully coloured, 'intelligent', inquisitive but also shy makes this species a great photography challenge. I have been thinking about getting some flight photos of them for a while.

A couple of weeks ago I started daily feeding of a site where I think some flight photos may be possible. This has required an early alarm so I can visit the site during the commute to work. The inspiration for Project J was this magpie photographed recently at the same location.

I have two Jays arriving regularly now but have not tried flight photographs yet, as I have been just watching the birds and formulating the plan. Obviously I had to take a few photographs during this observation period :) The pattern of the birds coming into the feed is now quite predictable but the flight photographs will still prove tricky as their low slightly undulating flight makes them a difficult target to lock on to with the camera focus.

Their typical behaviour is to firstly land in a nearby tree and have a look around. They really do not get on well with magpies, and will not often come in to feed until the magpies have left.

Before dropping down to a tree stump.

They then hop down on to the surrouinding grass

Looking around for the feed

Having filled their large crop, they then fly off a short way to bury and hide food, before returning back to the feeding area.

It is during these short flights to cache the food that I hope to get the flight photograph. Easy said than done!

Amongst the Hares

Given that March is the month tradionally associated with hare activity I decided it was time to visit my site to see how active they were. They still seem reasonably quiet with not a great number showing and certainly no signs of any boxing. However, the sun did shine for once after the persistent grey gloom of the last couple of weeks although did not shine for long. Whether I will actually manage to photograph them boxing this year remains to be seen but it always a pleasure to photograph these wonderful animals.

On look out in the stubble field in the early sun

I thought these two may start boxing but they seemed happy just to sit and watch the sun rise.

Their fur is looking in good condition at the moment so it seems boxing has been limited.

A little early morning exercise to stretch those long legs.

Simply Gulls

Many people ignore the common species in their wildlife photography and are always on the look out for the rare. How many people ignore the technicolour starling or the 'humble' house sparrow (a bird I don't view as humble at all) or in this case sea gulls. Personally I think this is a mistake and they are missing out on a great deal as these are some beautiful photographs to be taken in the right light conditions. Sea gulls are generally easy to photograph especially in you have a loaf of bread to hand.

A good example is this herring gull. Firstly taken in some dull conditions

and then transformed by some late afternoon sun

Black-headed gulls also make great photographic subjects and a selection of recent images can be found below. These birds are also could for practising your flight photography technique.

If you watch bathing birds, they will often leap up after a short while washing to shake excess water from their feathers

or some fun can be had with flight photos

Pheasant Surprise

Firstly regular viewers will notice that I have decided to change the size of the Blog. I hope this works OK and if anyone has any problems viewing then please let me know. The main reason for doing this is so I can display bigger images.

While waiting for some brown hares to appear the other day, I had the opportunity to photograph a couple of pheasants. They are such beautifully coloured birds that I can rarely resist when they appear in front of the lens. However, they are quite difficult birds to compose well within the frame due to their long tail. This often means you need to be a long distance to fit the bird in which leads to loss of detail.

and a head shot to finish

Snow Hares

We had some snow recently, a seemingly rare winter event these days. Unfortunately living by the coast any snow which does appear usually quickly melts. As the snow lay around I was pondering on what I could try and photograph as it can create some great light. Hares running through snow seemed like a nice idea. Unfortunately I was late getting to the site and met with a carpet of snow covered in hare tracks. Looked like I had potentially missed some good action. During my search for the hares I only managed to find two, neither of which were running through snow!

The first was laying down and creating its own personal snow drift.

The other stood staring for a while at close range before departing into some undergrowth.

I thought there is always tomorrow but by the next day all the snow had virtually melted away. I felt as if I had missed an opportunity but with the happy consolation that it always good to get those first hare photos of the year :)

Late Winter Thrushes

My photography opportunities have been very restricted over the last few weeks for two main reasons. Firstly the moments of good light have been few and far between as a grey gloom has descended over my local area. However, more importantly I have spent a good proportion of the time in intensive care at the side of my partner Dawn who suffered major complications after surgery. I am happy to say she came back home on Friday, but has a slow recovery ahead. Many thanks to all the people for their support through a stressful time.

I went out for a morning session on 7th February, between hospital visits, to both 'celebrate' my birthday and also take advantage of a rare opportunity for some good light. I decided to go and target some thrush species, particularly fieldfare and redwing, as they will be leaving soon and will not be around until next winter. As I have recently been taking many fieldfare photographs with the birds hopping around of grass looking for worms, I made a conscious effort to try and get the birds in some different settings. Only the first two photos of fieldfare were taken on the day, but I thought I would add the other two from a previous visit as it will be many months before I will make another post of this species

At this particular site the redwing are a much more difficult bird to approach but as usual a bit of perseverance and patience pays off. Having got some photographs of the winter migrant thrushes I turned my attention to the residents. A mistle thrush was guarding a bush with its berries and chasing away other birds from its 'larder'. On look out from its bushDropping to the ground to mop up the berries of the birds it had chased off.

Before returning to guard duty The opportunity arose also to photograph song thrush, it was turning in to a good morning with all the main UK thrush species (I am thinking of those with spotted breast feathers) being photographed.

This is not a typical composition, but I liked the shadow, and so placed the bird to the right of the frame. Listening for wormsOne bird appeared from below a bush with a snail. I have always photograph a song thrush in typical snail smashing behaviour.

It dropped the snail and then picked it back up. The bird then hopped over to the only shadow nearby that was cast by a thin post, aligned itself to the shadow and pointing away from me, and then smashed the snail and devoured the contents. I think I might have to wait a while to get the snail smashing photos, but I am sure one day it will happen.