Half-a-square mile of nature

One of the best recommendations I could give to anyone interested in seeing wildlife, is to just find a quiet spot, preferably a bit secluded and just sit quietly and watch and listen to what’s going on around you.  This is what I did on a mild, cloudy but pleasant late June day.  I found a spot in an area of tall grassland mixed with shrubs, bushes and trees and just sat back and let the world go by.

In the near distance was a typical sound of summer, a Skylark, flying high over its own patch of territory and directly overhead Swallows showing their aerobatic skills whilst catching the plentiful supply of insects around.  Nearby I could hear a slight, low ‘chugging’ sound and eventually saw a Warbler with a mouth full of insects darting in and around the dense bushes, calling for its fledged young which were making their own sound in response.

I put my camera and lens with converter, on to a monopod to try and keep it steady in what was quite a strong breeze and grabbed what shots I could.  Most of the time I was catching glimpses through the undergrowth.  The cameras ISO was as low as I dared at 400 whilst still keeping a decent shutter speed and an aperture to get a bit of depth of field.  Only occasionally did either the parent stay out in the open long enough for me to get a photograph and the others were through obstacles of grass and bushes having to be manually focused.

After over an hour of hide and seek, I could hear the very distinct sound of Magpies ‘mobbing’ some kind of predator which I presumed to be a Sparrowhawk as it was within a section of dense bushes and trees, so ignored it.  However after about ten minutes curiosity got the better of me and walked over to were the racket was coming from.  As I looked back I saw that the Warbler family had all got together on a single perch in the distance and were being fed.  The view point was through a slim gap in the bushes that were swaying heavily in the wind and I was able to get off a few hand held shots before they again, dispersed.  I just missed one of the parents feeding them as I was trying to get into the best possible, unobstructed view.

Continuing over to the growing noise of the Magpies now joined by a backing chorus of a couple of Crows, as I approached I could just see over some undergrowth to a clear area and the unmistakable reddish brown back of a Fox.  Unfortunately, it too saw me though didn’t dart away as I would expected, instead moved to get a clearer view of me whist at the same time begin ‘dive bombed by the Magpies, then, without any particular hurry and in complete indifference to the Magpies, moved off.  Although I thought I’d probably missed my opportunity to get a good view I still got closer creeping behind the the undergrowth that had blocked my view.  The Magpies were still close by and still as excited so the Fox must have just moved into the bushes so I picked a spot, set my camera up and waited.

I could see the squawking Magpies going back and forth and after about twenty minutes, obscured by the bushes I was hiding behind, I could see the Fox walking across the open patch and as I followed it through my viewfinder, manually focusing as best as I could it stopped at a spot where I could just about see it clearly, at least its eyes and took a photograph.  This of course alerted the Fox to me but again, it seemed curious and moved along for a better view of me.

Everybody interested in nature or wildlife will probably have something they regard as a ‘special moment’ – a sunrise, a misty forest, the sight of a unique or rare bird.  Mine is being up-close and eye to eye contact with a wild mammal that would normally rather be far away from a human.  That moment where they are just feet away and looking right at you.  Once the Fox found a spot where it could see me as clearly as I could see it, it stopped and for a brief few seconds stood and starred right at me.  It was clear that this was a young Fox and probably not yet experienced any fear of humans.  I rattled of a couple of frames before it would inevitably run off but was able to then take a bit more time and compose the next two as it remained.  It was too close to get it fully in my cameras frame and was still obstructed but most was clear.

After the moment was over far too soon, the young Fox moved off, back into the undergrowth and by the diminishing noise of the Magpies, it was moving away.  Possibly had I waited for a few hours it may have returned but I was happy with my few images I was able to get and to have finally seen a Fox this year!

I headed back to the Warblers and noticed one particular that was singing on a branch in the open.  All animals have their own particular ‘space’ around them to which you can go so far before they are spooked by your presence.  I moved as close as I thought I could and sat and watched.  As I mentioned at the beginning one of the best things you can do is simply just sit and observe when it comes to wildlife and I noticed this particular bird followed an almost identical pattern.  It would sing at the top of the branch, fly briefly up then away then a few minutes later fly back to the bush, still singing then slowly move up higher and higher until reaching that same spot again.

Each time it flew away, I would move a few meters through the long grass and stop and repeated this about four times, each time letting the bird decide if I was too close or not.  Eventually I was able to get some half decent images though the lighting wasn’t ideal and the wind was blowing the perch is was on back and forth and I had to make some exposure compensation so as not to get just a dark shape without the sunlight filling in.

So in four hours in a relatively small area of grass and bushes there was quite a bit of activity just waiting to be seen.  This didn’t include what was directly around and beneath me in the form of insects, but the wind was too strong and light to poor to have a chance of recording this kind of macro photography with my camera.  It’s these kind of days that I like about the all too fleeting summers we get here.  Hopefully there will be a few more this year.

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A short, long Farne Island trip

What is now becoming a bit of an annual pilgrimage at the back end of June for me, is a trip to the Farne Island.  At this time of year the chicks have hatched, particularly the Puffins, and so there is a feeding frenzy on before most of the Islands occupants move on in a few months time. This year I took a change of lens with me.  Instead of the usual 400mm I took the Sigma 500mm just to see if it made any difference – it did, but more in a negative way, the reasons of which I hope to cover in a future post, lets just say having a more mobile lens to photograph birds that are all around you and where getting close is not an issue, was more important.  From a photographic point of view, the day was very disappointing with poor light for most of the time and only a couple of images turning out to be what I would call decent, but the trip itself can’t fail but be an amazing sceptical and always worth it. So out of the few that did survive being deleted, these are probably some of the better ones.

Guillemot with chick taken from the boat

Strangely enough, my favourite image of the trip came, not from the big lens, but from my 17-40mm @ 17mm

They don’t always have to be close ups – Puffin with a backdrop of grey skies

Each year I’ve wanted to get the iconic image of the Puffin with a mouth full of eels, but for most of them, arriving back to the chicks means being ‘mugged’ by awaiting gulls so they don’t tend to hang around.  However on the cliff edges away from the main Puffin borrows and the gulls, seems to be a bit more relaxed and this lone Puffin posed for me long enough for me to get a converter attached and was the only time having the extra reach of the 500mm (plus x1.4 converter) lens was an advantage. Perhaps, at least in part, the reason for the lack of photographic success on this occasion was my using public transport to get to Seahouses, the jump off point to the Farne Islands, which meant I was shattered by the time I started photographing.  Despite being relatively close to Newcastle, the journey took nearly three and a half hours as a rather uncomfortable bus went to every small village and town on the east coast of Northumberland south of Seahouses!  Add to this a delay due to the tide in setting off, the boat trip that lasts over an hour (it tours the islands), leaving officially and hour on the island, though more like forty five minutes once disembarked and on location.  All in all, I left home at 7:30 am and got back 8:45 pm – a long day for 45 minutes!

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Siggy’s back!

It’s been away for what seems an age, but finally my Sigma 500mm lens is back from the repairs and is as good as new thanks to the good people at Sigma.  So it was with great expectations that I went out at the weekend with it. The main hope of the day was to photograph the local Red Kites but anything else was also game if I came across it and with that extra 100mm gain over what I had been using recently, more would be open to opportunity, especially small birds.  It was ironic then than for the whole morning I struggled to get close to much – maybe it was simply too higher expectation – but little was filling my cameras frame.  The Heron below moved away within a minute of my arrival, the Reed Buntings that had been so accommodating last week, this week didn’t keep still as was the case of a family of Long Tailed Tit fledglings I came across, Red Kites were also circling high up in the distance as was a lone Buzzard.  Only a family of Canada Geese gave me the chance to reacquaint myself with the magnification of a 500mm lens.

A Heron deciding not to hang around for me

Not every image has to be filled by the subject to make it work.  A Coot moving across a weed covered lake patterned by previous movements

Despite the poor opportunities, I had used up most of a 2GB card when I saw a Red Kite coming low towards me and I had moments to get into an open position where the trees weren’t in the way, took one shot where my camera then refused to take anymore.  Reason? It was saying ‘card full’.  All I could do was watch the Kite glide over me.  By the time  I would have got a new one out, it would have been just in time to get the back end of the bird disappearing.  I new that card was nearly full but it should have automatically transferred to the second one, trouble was I hadn’t deleted the contents of it before hand as I thought I had and this one too was full.  The closest I have been to a wild Red Kite and I only managed to get one shot of – a poor one at that.  I was starting to think this was not going to be my day.

One of the best places you can see Red Kites on Tyneside is the Nine Arches Viaduct along the Derwent Walk Country Park.  It’s a bit of a cross roads for them, often nesting nearby and a communal roost in winter not far away.  It was here I made my final stop of the day and waited in the hope that one might just come down close enough to give me a good view.

Nine Arches Viaduct in the centre

Plenty of Kites could be seen (and heard) in the distance but none wanted to come close enough so I become distracted by a small ‘jumping spider’ patrolling right in front of me on the viaduct ledge.  A macro opportunity I thought so quickly changed lenses.  This spider wasn’t going to make it easy for me, it was constantly on the move and when it did stop it didn’t give me enough time to focus on it before it was off again.  I’m still getting used to macro.  This spider was tiny and the depth of field was a matter of millimetres and in keeping with typical wildlife photography where you always should focus on the eyes (in this case many eyes), was difficult, not helped by my having to stretch and the quite poor light – for macro at least. I did notice it going over the viaduct edge every now and then, then reappearing and hoped I could catch it just poking up over the top with those beady eyes and the lovely green background.  Trouble was, I never new where exactly it would appear and when it did, it didn’t stop for long.  I did mange a few shots – not exactly what I wanted but ok.  I didn’t realise until I got them home and looked on the computer that it had caught something, a fly of some sought, and was carrying it off.  It’s amazing really.  Here I was with my newly returned long telephoto lens trying to capture distant images and drama and right under my nose, right were I was standing, drama in miniature was unfolding. I continued to ‘stalk’ this diminutive predator as it hurried along but was distracted by someone asking me was that a camera I had!  I manage to resist the urge to sarcastically say, no it’s a Morphy Richards silver kettle and answered him, but now I had lost my spider.  Also funny, while I was pointing the lens over the top of the viaduct, photographing something that was only centimetres away, people were stopping and looking over the edge at something they thought I must be photographing in the distance! Whilst trying to find the spider again, I noticed what I thought was a small, fluttering bird below which I then realised was in fact a bat!  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a bat and never in the middle of the day.  There must be some of them living under the arches.

Whilst being distracted by the bat (and the spider) a Kite passed low overhead.  By the time I scrambled to get the 500mm lens back on, it was already some distance away and just as I thought I'd missed yet another opportunity, it turned and started an ascending, circling glide.  By the time it made its first passing I was able to dial in some exposure compensation so as not to get a silhouette and take some frames.  By the second passing I was also able to drop the ISO from the 1600 needed for the macro to 800.  Still, conditions were not ideal.  It was overcast, though reasonably bright with the position of the sun overhead and behind the Kite.  A combination of over compensation the exposure for the Kite and the grey, formless skies, meant for a ‘washed out’ look to the images, so unfortunately, they’re not great.  Still, I quite like the first showing the Swift in frame, one of many that were also flying around. It was amazing how, after only a few minutes, this bird was far up in the sky and some distance away.  I don’t think I saw it once flap its wings but rather just used the natural, warm uplifts of air to effortlessly glide away. I suppose I could work on the images on the computer to bring out what hazy blue colour there was in the sky to help improve the picture and maybe try this before uploading the few decent ones to my website.  I’m still waiting to get a really good, technically, Kite shot.  Maybe I’ll try again over the coming months.

Update from previous post about Long Tailed Tit nest. Last week I did re visit the nest I’d been watching over a couple of weeks in hoping to see the chicks fledge.  Unfortunately I came across the scene in the photograph left.  It looked like a predator had got in the nest and presumably taken all the chicks.  Click on the images of a larger view.  You can see the nest in the background and feathers littering the foreground, presumably, lining from inside the nest. Although the nest was low down, I had thought being in a thorny Gorse bush overlooking water, it was relatively safe.  It must have been a small mammal, maybe one of the weasel family.  A bird of prey such as a Sparrowhawk couldn’t have got in. It’s a shame but then Long Tailed Tits do have a high mortality rate and their nests at this time of year are often raided like this.

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Still more sunshine!

We are being spoilt – three days of sunshine!  Normally a day of good weather brings me to feverishly plan in making the most of the day by deciding on what I will be doing and photographing so as not to waste the precious moment of sunshine, but today I thought, what the heck, I'll just spend the day wondering around and enjoying the weather taking any photographic opportunities that may come my way. In the Reeds My travels started around wetlands and reed beds where I came across this Reed Bunting, very vocal and initially quite hidden.  I tried to take photographs through the reeds but every time I found a gap the wind would blow the reeds around so obstructing a clear view.  It took over half an hour of patiently waiting before he came out to a spot clear of reed obstacles by which time my ability to keep the camera completely steady after holding the lens up for so long, was becoming a bit of a struggle and so fewer shots were as sharp as I would have liked. As he stayed put on this spot I had more time to frame the shot and catch it just at the right time.  I noticed at every time just near the end of the song, his beak would be open continuously and so shot frames off at that point.  I also tried to change to portrait viewpoint to get more of the reed in shot.

By the Lake Elsewhere, some of the lakes geese and ducks were enjoying the sun on terra firma but I noticed every time a dog walker would come along they flew back to the water.  A good opportunity to get some bird in flight shots, so sat at a spot I thought likely they’d fly past, kept the sun to my back for optimum lighting and waited.  Sure enough after their returning to the spot some dogs were unleashed upon them.   I was able to get quite a few shots of mostly Mallards in flight though even a Jackdaw got in on the act and gave me a fly by.  Unfortunately the best of the images of this bird (see below)had some nearby trees obtruding on the right of the frame.  I did toy with the idea of using the wonders of digital editing and clone the distraction out which would have probably made it a better shot, but refrained.

Interestingly, after my last excursion photographing Sand Martins in flight, I had less of a problem holding a focus lock despite a ‘busy’ background.  Probably a combination of it being a much larger subject and a more consistent flight pattern as well as having more time to get that lock as I could track them from take off to passing right by me.  What a difference the sun can make to a shot.  It just helps to bring out the colours and give the photograph a more 3d impact.

In the Fields In many of the fields the foliage was kept short by grazing horses and so had a blanket of beautiful yellow buttercups with the odd, intermittent splash of purples and whites from other wild flowers.  I did notice during the day something that I had already realised in the past week, and that was how few actual flowing plants I come across – six on this day and mostly of only two variations.  It was still a beautiful sight in the early afternoon sun on a sunny warm day with an almost clear sky and so sat down under the shade of a small tree for a much needed drink.

There seemed to be a chorus of competing songbirds in every direction I could here and on a distant perch, a Kestrel was on the lookout for a meal and the call of a couple of Red Kites filled the air even above the songbirds though I couldn’t see them.    What I did see was a leggy Crane Fly flying past and landing on some nearby grass.  A quick lens change and on went my 105mm macro.  A bit of insect stalking later and I was able to get a couple of frames off before it was off. Lying down photographing this, suddenly I noticed another – a small red beetle crawling around between flying from grass stem to grass stem.  For the last week I’ve been looking for insects to try out my macro ‘talents’ but I had been walking around.  Getting down to ground level and suddenly a whole new Serengeti appears.  Many more of these beetles, small flies and various other assortments of bugs and beasties including a spider that was busy repairing its web.  At least it couldn’t fly away and so gave me a good opportunity to try my new macro skills, or at least that what I thought.  It was constantly moving back and forth, spinning its silk and as I tried to focus on it at a closer range every slight breath of wind literally shook the spider out of frame.  Despite the bright sunshine I had to push up the ISO to 1600 just so I could get a decent shutter speed and the depth of field needed.  That close and with that depth of field, just my breathing was moving the spider in and out of focus.  I ended up settling for 1/1000 second at f10.  I’m thinking some kind of flash is a must for this kind of work. Whilst shooting the spider I noticed another bug crawl past my viewfinder – literally!  During the many lens changes I had made during the day it had somehow got inside my camera.  I’m normally very careful about changing lenses so as not to get dust onto the sensor, but a small bug!  The whole camera cleaning kit came out when I got back.

Crane Fly

I’m not an expert but I believe the three images below are of a Soldier Beetle

A Garden Cross Spider

By the Pond Later on coming across some small pond that looked lifeless but for some flies, so I thought I would try the same tactics as with the fields and get down low and just wait.  Sure enough there was a flurry of activity with Pond Skaters everywhere.  Under the water were tadpoles and small fish one of which I watched for a while as it seemed to patrol its area of territory barely a foot square in size, unconcerned by leaning over and pointing my lens at it. For the first time this year I also came across some Damsel Flies both red and blue, no Dragon Flies though.  Due to their timidness and my clumsy technique of stalking them, I ended up putting my converter on the macro lens so as to help keep a bit of distance between us.

A Pond Skater

Male Stickleback

My first real excursion into macro photography was quite and eye opener.  In some ways it’s similar to the way I go about photographing larger animals except you have to think on a miniature scale.  I’m reasonably happy with the macro shots though I’m sill learning so hopefully will improve.

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