Up with the Larks

I slipped out of bed 10 minutes before the alarm was due to sound. I must have some kind of built in biological clock as I inevitably wake just before the set alarm time. A hint of the approaching early morning light could be seen as I finish a cup of tea and headed out along the local coast to look for skylarks. For me timing is all when it comes to photographing skylarks which is mainly dictated by their use of the local sites along the coastal fringe and dunes.

Firstly I always head out for them in March as their ascending song flights provides a reminder that Spring has arrived, even if the low temperatures are not very convincing. The main reason for choosing March is the vegetation is short and the photographic prospects for a bird that spends most of its time foraging around in grass are improved. The next essential part of the timing is to be ‘up with the larks’ at first light as the area they favour receives a high frequency of foot traffic along the coastal path. A visit later in the day and you could easily convince yourself that there are no birds there. Later in the day, the larks have generally skulked away into hiding under the daily onslaught of dog walkers, horse riders and cyclists. Every year I wonder how many of their delicate cup shaped grass nests are unknowingly trampled underfoot.

The site provides two main areas of photographic opportunities with either the birds resting or foraging on the ground or perched on the surrounding fence posts having made the rapid vertical descent from a song flight. The light was not great in quantity but had a soft early morning quality.

When photographing birds an individual will quickly indicate if you have been careful enough in your approach that it will tolerate your presence. If it does not then there is little point in pursuing it as it is unlikely to have changed its mind if you manage to get close to it again. Therefore there is no point chasing birds and it is not fair on them to waste their valuable energy for your photograph. The welfare of the subject is and should always be at the top of the priority list and best photographic opportunities are nearly always when a bird comes to a position where you are waiting. The first bird I managed to get close to by crawling through the dew soaked grass.

These low level photographs can be quite difficult as often there will be a couple of annoying blades of grass in front of the bird where you least want them to be. Repositioning is not always an option at very close range and often it’s a case of hoping the bird will move in to a better position. The occasional bird would land on the fence line and this produced a few photographs. I came across a particularly tolerant bird that landed on the top of some dune fencing and offered a number of poses. It was good to be back in close company with the skylarks. I decided to leave that group of birds and try another small area of marsh further along the coast. Again I encountered good numbers of birds, which is always good to see, but quickly became distracted from my Skylark quest by a Little Egret on the edge of the marsh. This bird proved rather wary until it took flight due to an approaching dog walker and swung round and flew right past me a close range in the early sunlight. This seemed like a good moment to bring the session to an end and head home for breakfast. I had enjoyed some wonderful wildlife encounters before most peoples’ weekend alarm clocks had even gone off.

Spring is in the Hare

Firstly apologies for the delay in blog update but I'm sure there is some force of nature that as you get older the hours in the day get shorter. Certainly the years pass more quickly and I cannot believe that we are already heading rapidly towards the end of March and the first of the migrant birds are appearing on our shores

For many people the hare is the symbol of Spring, as they chase and battle their way across the first shoots of a farmer's new crop. Personally I like to photograph them throughout the year and particularly in the long lazy days of late summer when they seem so much more relaxed. My sessions with the hares this year have all been brief sessions before or after work now that the day length has increased sufficiently. However, strangely this year despite getting quite a few photographs of these enigmatic animals I have yet to actually had the sun shine on one. A good indication of the low light conditions is reflected by the dilated pupil of this head portrait. (sometimes a 500mm lens is just too long!)

The weather has been slightly odd with there always being cloud in the early morning before the skies then clear and the hares disappear.

The lack of light has been of no benefit for trying to capture action photos but has created some good even lighting for portraits.

It is always good to get some eye contact in an image and to fall under a prolonged direct gaze of a hare is a magical shared moment.

Why did the soggy hare cross the road? Well probably because a female had previously and an enticing scent trail was being followed.

After all that chasing around there is a need to lie quietly to recuperate amongst the fresh lush new growth of spring....

....or to undertake a spot of early morning grazing to build the energy levels back up for the next mad dash.

I have literally hundreds of hare images in my library and I am occasionally asked why I continue to photograph them. Well there is no answer I can put in to words as to the reason but anyone who had a prolonged encounter a close range will understand.

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.

Chasing Summer Colours

At some point during each winter and usually in the month of January, a Mediterranean Gull will appear amongst the flocks of hundreds of local gulls. These are scarce birds and it always a challenge searching through the masses of similar looking Black-Headed Gulls to find one. I must admit I have got better at picking them out of the feathered crowd with time and the subtle differences in winter plumage between the two species now becoming more obvious to me. This winter a bird arrived early and has stayed local through the entire season which has provided plenty of photo opportunities of what I consider to be one of our most elegant gull species.

I first found the bird towards the end of November and this particular individual seemed less wary than usual and provided a great deal of fun and many very close encounters.

This photograph of the bird was achieved with a shallow depth of field to turn the grass into green mist as it was peering up over the top of a bank, whilst resting amongst the roosting gull flocks.

I found the bird once again just before Christmas with snow laying on the ground. A couple of photos have appeared in previous posts but here is another flight photo from that session of wonderful reflected light.

Christmas came and went and on the 2nd of January and my new 'friend' was one of the first birds to put an appearance in front of the lens during 2011.

I did not photograph the bird for another 6 weeks and was pleasantly surprised during our next encounter in mid February on how far it had progressed in to summer plumage. Once these birds start changing to their summer colours progression is often quite rapid. I have never managed to photograph a Mediterranean Gull in their smart full summer colours. The fact this bird seemed well advanced, before their normal departure around the beginning of March, offered encouragement that I might actually finally achieve the goal.

So a week later, and despite some fairly poor conditions, I was out once more searching amongst the ever increasing numbers of gulls. The bird had become quite obvious amongst the crowd by this time with its deep black head feathers standing out amongst the brown heads of the Black-headed Gulls (the clue is not always in the name!) as they transform to their summer colours

By this point all that was remaining were the last few white feathers around the beak to turn black.

It looked like in a few more days or another week at most that my chase to find those full summer colours of the Mediterranean Gull would be at an end. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was in sight. However, the bird had other ideas and appears to have finally departed and no doubt will appear once more at the end of the year returned to its full winter plumage. To be honest that final photo it is not really of importance and it is the numerous encounters and time spent in close proximity with this bird over the past few months that will persist in the memory.

Titivating Birthday

Over the last couple of years it has become a bit of a tradition for me to take my Birthday off work and head out for the day with the camera. This year my birthday fell on a Monday but the forecast was poor and so it was postponed to the following day when the forecast was for some clear sky and sunshine. The choice of venue for this year's birthday session was really dictated by the weather, and an early start saw my friend Steve and I heading south to a well known car park where the birds have been fed for many years. This site requires some tolerance by the photographer as there is a lot of disturbance from visitors passing through who usually seem to have little respect for the birds or the fact you are trying to take some photographs. However, it does have the benefit of plenty of birds and the fact you can set up a temporary mini feeding station to your liking.

The site does not usually offer anything unusual to the photograph although is frequented by the scarce Willow Tit and a number of Yellowhammer. As we drove in to the car park I was looking forward to a relaxing day, spent in good company, photographing some small common birds.

The first job on arrival was to set-up the mini feeding station giving due consideration to the path of the sun and backgrounds. We came prepared with some small branches and an old log. Birds started visiting the perches instantly and even while we were still strategically placing out the feed. It was then back to the car yto use as a temporary hide. For this small bird photography at close quarter I usually use a 25mm extension tube on the 500mm lens as it makes the bird a little larger in the frame. The other important consideration is to use a reduced aperture to increase the depth of field (the depth of the photograph in focus) which is very narrow at close range with a long lens. This reduces the potential problem of the head being in focus and the feet out of focus which always looks a bit odd. A steady stream of birds started arriving.

Despite being a common bird there is no denying that Blue Tits look superb at this time of year.

Another common tit species and the largest, the Great Tit.

The broad black mid-line markings showing this to be a male bird in fine early 'spring' plumage.

I must admit I could happily sit for hours photographing these common birds when the light is so good and they are looking so beautiful.
At the other end of Tit size scale, the smallest species the Coal Tit.

This next bird is one of the best looking Coal Tits I have seen in a long time and had excellent colour and markings.

Of the Tit species when it comes to looking 'cute', the award would certainly go to the feathered pompom that is the Long-tailed Tit.

I have always had a fondness for this species and it was great to have two or three birds periodically visiting the temporary feeding setup.

Another species that occasionally called in for the free handout, and the most frustrating to photograph, was the scarce Willow Tit.

Photographing small birds is never easy and requires quick reflexes but the feeding behaviour of the Willow Tit compounds the problems as it dashes in grabs a seed and then flies off very quickly. They are also one of those species that rarely seem to be looking in the direction of the camera.

In addition to the constant arrival and departure of nearly all the UK tit species, the occasional Nuthatch would bring welcome change.

This one captured in typical Nuthatch hanging off a tree pose.

There was also an occasional Yellowhammer putting in a brief appearance and a wonderful bird that topped of a productive and enjoyable day.