Along the banks of the River Tyne

It’s been the longest period since starting this blog that I haven’t posted anything, mostly down to recent events leaving me badly lacking in motivation.  Ironically, starting back into my photography and in particular, the blog, was to help get me out and work as a distraction.  So I’ve put together some images taken over the summer during a few visits along the River Tyne. One of my regular yearly visits has been the nesting areas of Sand Martins along the banks.  Each year they’ve tended to alternate this location though this year they’ve kept the same one as last year which, unfortunately, was in a difficult place to take photographs as most of the nest entrances were hidden from clear view.  The best chance to get a photograph was to watch them for a while and work out the best place to pre-focus the lens and then just wait and hope.  Still, most of the images were out of focus due to the very narrow depth of field caused by the long lens and low light.

A visit further up the Tyne made for a nice walk with nobody about on a nice peaceful summers day, but with little of photographic opportunity.

On one of the hottest days of the summer on a grassy section, the Skylarks were out in force.  Their sound is just one of those that typify summer and I just sat for a while listening to them.  They were all singing from their own patch seemingly competing with each other and an obvious behaviour pattern showed.  Although they were mostly hidden in the long grass, occasionally they would fly up into the air and sing while hovering or move to a high grass stem.  This is gave me the photo opportunity though difficult.  By the time I'd even manage to get such a small bird framed in my camera, I had to manually focus.  Each time it went into the air, I had around three seconds at most before it went back down into the grass. Most of the following photos then were of the skylarks perched on a grass stem or a bush.

On one occasion whilst perched within the grass, the Skylark flew up startled by something in the grass.  I had no way of knowing what but it must of moved on as the Skylark quickly settled down again.