Winter Wanderings

This has probably been one of the worst winters to date for photography that I can remember. A constant stream of storms and wet weather have rolled in on the Atlantic 'conveyor belt' and an unusual jet stream alignment has resulted in unseasonably warm temperatures. Some trees are even in blossom in December! Many places just a short distance to the north of here have suffered the brunt of this weather and my thoughts go out to those communities who have been subject to repeated flooding which must be a dreadful experience.

I don't mind photographing wildlife in bad weather as it can produce some very atmospheric images but there needs to be some light and that is where this winter has really failed. There has been a almost constant presence of thick grey cloud above. The few moments of brightness seem to have coincided with when I have been otherwise occupied. I have managed a couple of moments to coordinate having the camera in hand with those rare moments when the sun has broke through and thought I would share a few photos from these sessions with you.

The first of these are from my long running corvid flight project. Being close to home it means I can respond quickly to getting there when the sun appears. The low winter sun means that there is a very limited window of light at the location, due to long shadows cast by trees. Always fun to photograph these birds. The challenge with the magpies is to try and catch the back view of the tail in the right light such that it shows off the full rainbow range of colours. The photographs below are a small selection taken from this project since September.

The jay are as difficult as ever with their erratic flight, particularly as these birds come in to land.

I have a couple of marine lakes close to home on the Wirral. The most reliable for turning up an interesting bird is the large lake at West Kirby on the north-west corner of the peninsula. It has been a few years since a Great Northern Diver took up temporary residence on the lake and this winter saw a juvenile bird arrive. A brief moment of sun saw me out next to the lake which is always a challenge for photography merely as a result of its large size. It was good to catch up with this young diver having spent some time with the adults in Iceland this year. After some patient waiting and moving while the bird was submerged, I was eventually rewarded with a close encounter and just in time before the sun disappeared below a bank of clouds gathering over the hills in North Wales.

The very last rays of the day.

Of course you always get a few extras along the way including a group of Redshank at first light and a Little Egret whilst waiting for the final species of this post, the Short-eared Owl.

This winter has seen a big influx of Short-eared owls into the UK. I assume this is a reflection of a poor year for voles, their main prey, or very successful breeding year in Europe. Its always a pleasure to photograph these daylight hunting owls and watching them quarter the fields in search of prey. They usually stay until around March when they start heading back up to high altitudes to breed. So hopefully if the weather is kind there is still plenty of time to photograph them in the New Year.

This will be my last blog post for this year. Thanks for all your support through 2015  and I will wish you all a Happy, Healthy and Wildlife filled 2016.

Just Jays

Regular readers will know I have a great fondness for photographing various corvids in flight. A particular favourite and challenge has been the Jay.

The majority of people seem to love jays which I put down to their slight unusual and exotic looks amongst the relatively muted colours of birds in the UK. Their pinkish hues of their body combined with black and white wings with its splash of electric blue and a crest which they only occasionally show.

Almost in flight

Jays are generally a relatively shy woodland species with broad wings that provide them with the lift to carry crops full of acorns, which they spend a good proportion of the autumn caching to provide a winter food supply. Having spent a good deal of time with these birds, some of their hiding of acorn tactics are probably not too successful when they simply place it on the ground and place a nearby leaf on top. Amusing to watch but hardly an approach that will deter a determined and hungry squirrel. Their broad wings also offer them great manoeuvrability in the air to help them negotiate with ease through their preferred woodland habitat. However, this aerobatic ability also makes them particularly challenging to photograph in flight.

'Project J' as I entitled this mission when it started a few years ago has proved an interesting and rewarding learning experience. I would say that it is only really during this year that I have finally honed the technique to consistently start capturing images of this fascinating species in flight. The main difference this year has been getting closer to the birds which has allowed me to use the very fast focusing 300mm F2.8 lens rather than fairly unwieldy 600mm. Speed of focus is key when trying to photograph these colourful corvids to keep up with the erratic and rapid flight paths.  However, even with a fast focusing lens and camera body the challenge still remains high. They are prehaps at their most unpredictable when coming into land and as I previously written about before the 'jay flip' often takes them sideways out of the camera viewfinder just when you think you have got the focus locked on.

Interestingly another confounding problem I have recently found at this site, paradoxically, is bright sun. Now many would think that bright sun would be beneficial for this flight photography allowing fast shutter speeds and larger depths of field to be easily achieved. However, apart from the obvious exposure challenges under these conditions on a bird with patches of black, a bright white rump and wing bars, I have often found the camera also struggles to acquire focus. The reason for this is that I am photographing the birds low over an area of grass which has much more contrast in bright sunshine. A camera's autofocus system is based around detecting contrast and so there is a tendency under these condition for the camera to lock on to the grass, especially when using expanded autofocus points. An expanded focus area is a necessity for these birds to try and keep the camera on them during their unpredictable flight path. Under the bright diffuse light of thin cloud cover, the success rate of achieving and holding focus on the jays becomes much greater. This just goes to show how differences in light when combined with the setting can have a big effect on how a camera can perform and as such the photographer needs to constantly change and adapt his settings and approach to maximise success under the prevailing conditions.

I think I have probably rattled on enough here and gone slight off track on the whole purpose of this post which is to show you some flying jays. To me they look at their best from a dorsal view when the blue wing patches are in view and this is probably the most difficult photo to achieve.

I may do one more Jay session this autumn but my thoughts are rapidly turning to my plans for the winter. Winter is a wonderful time for the wildlife photographer, if the weather is kind, and I always look forward to it as I am once again this year.

More Flying Corvids

Thought I would do another post on some flying corvids given that they are such a great photographic subject.Whilst trying to capture photographs of my main target, the Jay, I also get visits from other birds such as Magpies and Carrion Crows.

The Jays are on the bottom rung of a distinct pecking order ladder of these three crow species. As such, there are always some opportunities to photograph these other birds whilst waiting for the feeding area to become clear. Both the crows and magpies are easier to photograph than the jays as they are more predictable in their flight patterns. The main issue is one of getting the exposure of the photograph right in the good light needed for flight photography.  For the non-photographers reading this that means trying to finely balance the camera settings to changing light conditions to maintain detail in both the blacks and whites parts of these birds. Birds that are both black and white being at either end of the 'light spectrum' can present quite a challenge to capture correctly. Of course as I have said before the magpie is not really a black and white bird but the back of the wings has an iridescent blue sheen and a green tail that ends in a purple dominated rainbow of colour. Despite their much maligned reputation, there is no denying that the magpie is a very attractive bird when looked at carefully.

Another occasional visitor is the Wood Pigeon. Interestingly these birds stand their ground to all at the feeding area except Carrion Crow.

Of course the real star of the show and the main reason why I started this whole project so long ago, is the Jay.

Air brakes fully engaged before the final landing flip.

 Fly-bys with full downbeat wing extension. Of course given the nature of jay flight you inevitably end up with quite a few photographs with no wings showing and it just appears like a flying rocket.

Sometimes it nice to pull back a bit and show a bit more habitat, especially when there is the lovely rusty coloured hues of old beech leaves in the frame.

Possibly my favourite photograph of the recent return to Project J is the one below which shows the bird in its fully flying glory whilst calling.

Its now time to put 'Project J' back to bed for a while as Spring is starting to develop and my thoughts will turn to other subjects. Its a joy now to walk back along the local coastal strip and hear the sky filled once again with tumbling liquid song of skylarks. I have a few photography projects in mind for Spring and Summer. In two months it will be time to jet off  as I am returning to the Danube Delta once more. I am really looking forward to the trip as on this visit I will be spending the entire week in the Delta  including a new area recently opened up to visitors in the north where amongst the bird life, I am hoping to put some golden jackal in front of the camera. So some exciting times ahead which as always will be a pleasure to share with you.

Roaming in Romania - Day 6: The Macin Mountains

Another very early alarm call pushed me out of the bed. It was quite strange to hear the sound of occasional traffic outside rather than a chorus of frogs.  After a brief bit of stumbling around my room to gather my belongings I headed down to the hotel reception, where I had chance to grab a quick coffee before boarding the minibus with the other three photographers. Our destination today was the Macin Mountains. After about an hour we turned off the main road and headed up a dusty dirt track across a patchwork of flat farmland to finally come to a stop at the lower slopes of the mountains.

Our plan for the next two day was that we would split into two groups with two sessions in a drinking pool hide, the only fixed hide of the whole holiday, and two sessions going round the farm tracks seeing what birds we could find. Hans and Michael took the first hide session while Rene and I headed off in the minibus with Zoltan.

As we travelled down the dirt track away from the hide, the occasional Corn Bunting could be seen flitting between song perches and Isabelline Wheatear dashed on to the track to grab an insect. I noted there were a few puddles on the track from recent rainfall. The first bird we managed to put in front of the lens was a Short-toed lark quietly calling from a large boulder in the early sunlight.

We carried on along the dust track for a while before we heard the ubiquitous cuckoo call and decided to stop for a while as Rene was keen to get some photos of the three birds that were preoccupied  chasing each other around.

By the time we had finished with the cuckoos the sun was well and skyward with the light becoming increasing harsh. However, more importantly and has been my experience of photographing on farmland previously, a heat  and water vapour haze was very quickly developing. Heat haze is a major cause of people thinking  their camera has malfunctioned as the wobbling air can make it very difficult to produce sharp images. This was well demonstrated as we came across a perched European Roller but the images all went in the trash. There are only two approaches for these conditions which are to pack up or to get very close to the birds to reduce the amount of wobbling air between you and them. Even if you can get very close there is still a need to take a lot of images as a good proportion of them will not be sharp.

The next bird which we managed to get very close to was the familiar sight of a Goldfinch which was busy pulling apart a globe thistle seed head.

Onwards down the track and we came to a small section  that was relatively busy with birds including Tawny Pipit and a new species for me, the Crested Lark. The latter is very similar in an appearance to a Skylark but with a permanently erect head crest.

Conditions were getting more and more difficult and after a failed attempt to find an Ortolan Bunting we finished the session with a close encounter with a singing Corn Bunting
.

The dry dusty farmland with its assortment of sandy coloured birds was a stark contrast to the lush vibrancy of the Delta that we had recently left. We returned to the hide to collect Michael and Hans who reported a very slow morning with only a Turtle Dove and out of condition Hawfinch showing up. The drinking pool hide at Macin can be very productive particularly during prolonged hot and dry conditions. However, the puddles on the tracks were a sign of recent rainfall providing the birds with other places to find essential water.

We all headed off into Macin to check in to another hotel where we would fortunately only be staying for one night. To say the hotel was very grim is an understatement. My door lock was hanging on by a single screw having obviously been forced open on several occasions. Certainly somewhere to sleep on top of the bed covers with your boots on to prevent being eaten alive by the mattress wildlife and also allow a quick exit if needed. Everyone quickly decided it was not the place to leave any camera equipment which would now stay with us for the rest of the time in Macin.

We had a pasta lunch outside of a roadside restaurant before heading back to the farmland and hide. Rene and I were dropped off for our afternoon session. For those of you not familiar with a drinking pool hide it is basically an infinity pool for birds with a hide at one end. The design of the pool tends to force the birds to visit the far end and the low set hide allows photography near water level.

As we sat and waited in what felt like a mini-sauna, there were sounds around would have been a delight to any bird lover's ears. In the tree behind the incessant calling of cuckoo and gentle purring of Turtle Dove, to the left the metallic jangle of a Corn Bunting, in the large distant tree ahead the flute-like calls of Golden Oriole and in the bush to the right the scratchy warbles of a Red-backed Shrike. In front of us to photograph....nothing. Eventually a bird appeared in the shape of a male Ortolan Bunting, a promising start. The attractive bunting stayed for a while on a small perch before deciding it was safe to bathe.

Another hour past with no signs of birds except the occasional flash of a male Golden Oriole chasing away a cuckoo. The next arrival was a Corn Bunting which paused briefly before getting down to the important business of cleaning its feather.

 

After the bird departed we were forced into a prolonged wait once more. We sat there hoping that a Golden Oriole might come in to bathe but it never happened. The arrival of the next bird did jolt us from our late afternoon lull, a stunning male Red-backed Shrike which has been there the whole afternoon just out of sight in the bush to our right. For me this was definitely bird of the day.

A Jay was the next visitor. When these birds decided to get a bath they don't mess around and soon the bird was completely soaked.

The final bird to arrive was a Turtle Dove. These are such beautiful birds but under so much pressure across Europe from intensive farming and hunting pressures. In the UK, this once common bird, is very sadly rapidly heading towards extinction as a breeding species. Efforts are being made to try and help the species in the UK but I wonder if the external pressures are too great and it is too little and too late to save this attractive dove.

That was the last bird which visited and we soon heard the rattle of the white minibus returning to collect us. Overall it had been a reasonable day but fairly slow, particularly in the hide where long periods of inactivity were punctuated by the occasional bird. We went straight for a meal before heading back to the 'roach motel'  where I quickly fell asleep on top of the bed still wearing my boots.