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.

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.

Project J Revisited

Regular readers of my blog will recall that I have a long running project to photograph Jays in flight, known as 'Project J' which started back in 2009. I have dipped in and out of this over the intervening years and last weekend thought it about time for a revisit given that conditions looked right.  Typically I arrived too early and before the sun had even crawled up over the horizon but it gave me a few moments to gather my thoughts and think about my approach for the session ahead.

For this session I decided that I was going to try a closer approach using the 300mm F2.8 lens. This lens has very fast autofocus and thought it might help with the erratic nature of the Jays flight path. However, this would of course be offset by the fact that I would be now much closer which means the action is much faster and more difficult for photographer and autofocus to keep in touch with the birds. The easier approach would be to set-up a log or stump and pre-focus on it but I always like a challenge and can assure you that trying to photograph free flying jays is definitely not easy.  Not only are the birds quite erratic in flight but also perform what I call the 'jay flip' on landing which is a bit of mid-acrobatics just before touch down. This can see them flip out of the field of view just at the critical last moment.

Of the three corvids present at this site - crows, magpies and jays, the jay being the smallest is at the bottom of the pecking order which usually means a short wait is required for them to appear. So whilst waiting a did a couple of test shots with the magpies.

The light was all over the place during the session with both sun and overcast conditions which kept me very busy with adjusting camera settings. The long shadows from nearby trees cast by the low winter sun also proved problematic as they moved across my target area as the sun rose. The photography is all done from the car which is not the ideal place to pursue flight photography but is the only way possible with this shy species. I really wish my car had smaller wing mirrors!!

Four Jays eventually appeared and it was time to try and capture some flight images. I decided for this session I would mainly concentrate on the birds coming into land.

The session was reasonably successful although quite a few images ended up in the trash from this session. I am still debating whether using a longer lens at greater distance is a better approach. Of course there are a lot of variables during each individual session which affect the birds behaviour such as wind direction, how many jays are visiting and the interaction with other birds. I doubt I will ever find the magic formula for success beyond perseverance. This is why I keep returning to Project J and am sure this certainly will not be my last session as it is always a pleasure to spend time with these charismatic birds.

Simply Flying Magpies

As the rain and hail swirl round outside in strong freezing gusts of wind it has been time to sit in front of the computer and work through my backlog of images left from last year. This seems even more sensible given that I am just getting over a nasty cold.

The weather is getting rather frustrating now as any time there is any glimmer of light it seems to be accompanied by gale force winds. I hope it will settle down soon as I am aching to get out and do some photography. This is particularly the case as after some selling of old kit and saving I managed to get my new long lens and am looking forward to giving it a really good testing.

So this post is just dedicated to flying Magpies, which have been taken as part of my long running work on capturing various corvids in flight. Magpies are not a greatly loved species, blamed for also kinds of avian atrocities. However, they are opportunistic birds and nature is about survival so if available they are going to exploit an easy meal by raiding a smaller bird's nest of its eggs or young.  You often hear people say 'oh I had a lovely woodpecker in the garden' but never are such words spared for a magpie. However, woodpeckers can also be surprisingly predatory as is evidenced by the number of nest boxes that suddenly become empty and the entry whole 'mysteriously' enlarged.

To me the old counting magpie rhyme does not start by painting them in a good light. 'One for sorrow' in my mind should really be 'One for Pleasure' because they make a superb bird to photograph. This is particularly the case when in flight when their striking plumage is displayed in its full glory.

They are not the easiest of birds to photograph in flight as they tend to be quite erratic and difficult to track with the camera. Of course the black and white feathers also require careful exposure control of the camera and vigilance of subtle changes in light conditions. My photography of these birds has required quite a concerted effort with continual feeding of a particular site over a number of years. This has resulted in it being now quite easy to get the birds where I want them which is half the battle won.

Now if I were to ask most people about the colour of a magpie they would say that it was a black and white bird. Looking at the first five photographs on this post it is easy to see why they would think that. However, it is the back of the bird where the colour are. The blue of the wings and a tail that is green turning to purple at its tip that glows like a rainbow in the right light.

Now in my head I have an image of a magpie in flight that I am hoping to capture one day. I already know that it is a difficult photograph to capture and only persistence and a bit of luck will see me rewarded. The best colours of a magpie are displayed from a rear view when the tail takes on it spectrum of hues.

However, on these occasions, as above, the bird's head is facing away from the camera and I want something that gives the viewer of the photograph a bit more of an intimate contact with the bird. I know I will never take this rear view image with the magpie looking back towards the camera as it would be a foolish bird that flies without looking where it's going! The only hope is to get the bird banking in front of me with a full dorsal view and its feathers splayed. A difficult proposition but one day it will happen and that's what keep me going back to photograph these wonderful birds.