Winter Light

Photography is all about using light to show your subject at it best. For me, this is about using natural light as I don't use flash. Many years ago I tried some flash photography trying to capture small birds in flight and was so disturbed at the response of the birds that have not used it since. I don't have any problem with the use of fill flash during daylight for those that want to use it. However,  Aacurrent trend I find particularly worrying at the moment is photographing owls at night with multiple flash set ups at baited posts. With their highly sensitive night vision, this must be impacting on the birds with temporary blindness and their long term hunting success. Now I know there are all kinds or arguments surrounding this concerning the negative effects which I not going to enter into. All i can say is this practice seems wrong and it bothers me greatly.

For those photographers who just use natural light, winter is a very special time of year. The low elevation of the sun produces beautiful soft warm light to work  through large parts of the day. Unfortunately, living in cloudy north west England,  such days can be few and far between and so you have to make the most of them when they do occasionally arise. On occasions it can feel like an eternity of cloud between sunny moments. The other benefit of course is that it easy to get out at first light without the need to set your alarm to ridiculous o'clock, so you can have a nice relaxed start to the day and still be at your chosen site at sunrise to catch the first important rays. Even at this time of year, both ends of the day tend to produces the most evocative images.

The collection of images below are from my recent winter wanderings and in no particular order.

I have spent a little time down by the huge area of local salt marshes hoping to capture some short-eared owls. As with most photography of hunting owls it is a game of luck and whether they fly close to your chosen position. Given the size of the marsh, success rate can be fairly low and it requires many hours effort to be rewarded with only a few images. Given the time requirements, the moments when the sun is out and the owls are close occur even more infrequently.

When the sun does shine at this site in the afternoons it tends to be at a tricky angle and ranges from side lit through to full backlit.

Sat waiting by the marsh for long periods you do see plenty of other birds, particularly raptors such as hen harrier and marsh harrier although often at too far a distance for photography. Occasionally one does come closer. This is a silhouette of a marsh harrier hovering over the reeds at last light.

While waiting by the marsh, there are usually some small birds around the edge to pass the time such as Stonechat.

Another place I find myself waiting around quite a bit during the winter is one of the local marine lakes. This gets some interesting birds on it and can be good for photography as it allows in places for you to get right down at that water level perspective. However, with it covering an area of around 60 acres and having high numbers of visitors, catching the birds close to the edge requires paitence. I usually visit at first light when the number of people and dogwalkers around is low.

A Cormorant surfacing at first light.

There are usually several Red-breasted Merganser on the lake each winter.

This winter they were joined by two female Goosander.

One benefit of the number of visitors is that the wading birds are relatively accustomed to people which provides some photo opportunities while waiting. In this case a Redshank in flight.

One difference this winter is that there have been very high numbers of Brent Geese overwintering on Hilbre Island off the north west corner of the Wirral peninsula. Usually they stay on the island but some have been venturing over to the mainland this year which gave a couple of opportunities to put these long distance travellers in front of the lens for the first time.

Moving closer to home. At the end of the street where I live is the River Mersey, which gets reasonable numbers of waders on the intertidal area. For some unknown reason, I rarely venture down there with a camera. To get it at its best all the right conditions need to coincide with late afternoon sun and the right state of tide i.e as the tide is coming up to high water or ebbing away leaving a narrow strip of shore for the birds. As I work from home now, a couple of weeks back the weather and tides came together for a quick mid-afternoon break from the computer for an hour. It was an enjoyable brief session photographing a foraging Curlew and some Oystercatcher picking around the rocks for crabs and mussels.

Maybe I should try and visit the end of my street more often! It is all too easy to overlook what is on your 'doorstep'. Unfortunately it does not look like the sun will put in an appearance this weekend, such is the way of winter weather, but there is more promise in the forecast for next week for maybe a quick work break session. Fingers crossed for some more of that glorious winter light to come before spring is upon us.

Waiting for Merganser

Most winters rarely pass without me finding myself trying to photograph some of my favourite waterfowl, the sawbill ducks. There are three species in the UK, the Red-breasted Merganser, Goosander and the Smew. The latter is a rare visitor to the north-west corner of England where I live and so naturally I have concentrated my efforts on the other two.

A local large marine lake holds Red-breasted Merganser every winter. They tend to arrive in early December with up to a dozen birds being present but I tend to leave any photography until after Christmas when they have got a bit more accustomed to the visitors that stroll around this popular lake. Having said that these birds are still very wary and the lake is large and so it usually takes quite a bit of patience before they come into photography range.

Often I like to have a session with these birds on Boxing Day as it is good to get out of the house and in to the fresh air but it also has the bonus of an early morning visit is also unusually quiet. Unfortunately the weather on the last Boxing Day was not great and it was New Year's Eve before I found myself by the lake at first light. I was surprised to find a reasonable number of people already taking the long walk or jog around the perimeter either with or without dogs.

It was an icy cold morning with a brisk breeze and the sunlight was very short lived as it rose from the horizon and disappeared behind a swiftly moving blanket of low cloud. On arrival I decided to take a 'quick' circuit of the lake to see what was present and soon spotted half a dozen Goldeneye and a similar number of Merganser right out in the centre of the lake. On my travels I came across this Redshank, silhouetted against the golden water of first light which couldn't be ignored

As I moved around the lake more Redshank were found, running like Sanderling across the beach. Still the Merganser stayed out in the middle.

After a while I had complete a full circuit of the lake. The target birds were still out in the middle occasionally going on short feeding runs with synchronised diving. I sat and watched in the face numbing wind. Timed passed. More time passed. The Merganser seemed to be gradually moving closer to the far bank. I decided I would walk back around the far side to see if I could get close to them there. As I walked around they appeared to be getting closer and closer to the far bank of the lake but I had concerns about the number of people heading along the footpath towards them. These corncers were well founded as just as I got eventually round to them, after a reasonably long walk, the birds were drifting back out to the centre of the lake once more. However, I did manage a photograph of a couple more female birds arriving.

Back round the lake I walked again as the birds now seemed to be heading towards the bank where I was originally waiting. When I arrived they seemed to have stopped their progress once more in the middle of the lake. By this point I had been there for three hours with little to show for my efforts except a couple of Redshank and Oystercatcher photographs. I was at the point of thinking that this session was going to be a non-starter for the Merganser when the only male bird on the lake came swimming over right to where I was sat and started diving and fishing in front of me for around 10 minutes. Such is often the way in wildlife photography where long periods of inactivity are punctuated by very busy moments.

The light was not great, as these birds definitely look their best with a bit of sunlight on them to bring out the green hues in the black head feathers, but I was determined to try and make the most of the bird being so close. For these diving birds the best approach is move while they are underwater and try and predict where they will surface. My antics were receiving some odd looks and comments by the numerous people walking past. As soon as the bird dived I would jump up, quickly move along the footpath and lie back down to where I thought it would resurface.

Red-breasted Merganser always look slightly scruffy birds with their wayward head feathers compared to the sleeker line and plumage of the Goosander. However, it does give them a certain endearing character and I always really enjoy photographing them. Here is a small selection of the male bird whose eventual arrival was a very welcome relief on a bitter winter's day.

For my next post I will be re-telling an early January session with some beautiful Goosander on an upland lake in some much better light.

100 Shades of Grey

Firstly may I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope 2013 is filled with many memorable wildlife encounters for you. Apologies for the lack of updates over the last couple of weeks but the end of the year is always busy with final archiving and backing up images from the previous 12 months. I have also been busy with writing a magazine article.

I will turn the clock back just a couple of weeks to the end of 2012. I was really looking forward to my extended Christmas break and hoping that I would get plenty of opportunities to spend a few hours with the camera. However, for nearly the entire festive holiday the weather conditions were bad with persistent rain and a grey gloom overhead and more importantly a distinct lack of light. So each day I would keep my eyes glued to the weather forecast hoping for a moment of light to break through the stubborn blanket of grey above.

The first of these chinks of light was on Boxing Day morning and it was felt very good to escape the 'cabin fever' and step out at first light into the fresh morning air after the house bound easting excesses of the previous day. The period of sunlight looked as if it would be brief so I decided to stay local. I did not really have a plan on where I was heading to as I pulled away from the house. This is not usually a good idea as you can often spend most of the time driving around undecided and have very few photographs by the end of the session. As I was heading out towards the motorway a decision had been made and I would try and photograph some Red-breasted Merganser that appear each winter on the local marine lake. It has been a couple of years since I had last photographed this species so I was pleased to see about eight birds present as I arrived.

Two females on early morning feeding patrol

This is not an easy site as the birds are generally wary and it is a large lake making it easy for the birds to drift out of photography range. I have often found in the early mornings the birds will feed along the lake edge before the visitors and dogwalkers arrive, which tend to push them out beyond reach into the centre. My normal approach for these and other diving birds is to move to my position when they are foraging underwater. So I went straight from car to lake edge during the first dive. Lying still when they surfaced. On the next dive I moved to a position along the lake where I thought they would surface and so on. Sometimes you get into the right position and the bird surface right in front of you, other times not. To an onlooker I am sure my behaviour must have looked a little strange as repeatedly I jumped up quickly, walked a little away along the lake edge and lied down again.

The session was quite brief as what I had not figured into my calculation was how many people would be out in the early sunlight for a Boxing Day constitutional. Therefore the birds presence at the lake edge was brief.

Just left with a head as a male bird disappears into a trough between waves.

The next glimmer of sunlight took place on the morning before New Years Eve but this time was accompanied by a very stiff wind. When photographing birds on water I have two preferred conditions either flat calm that gives potential for reflective images with a sense of tranquility or very rough water which gives more energy and dynamics to the image. Again half a dozen birds were present but this was rapidly reduced to a solitary male as two windsurfers came speeding up the lake. However, I managed to stay with the male at close range for quite a long period.

A male bird in mid-dive. This is a photograph I have been trying to get for a while. It happens very quickly with the only hint the bird is about to dive being a slight flattening of the feathers and posture. I was happy to get one though which still showed the birds eye just before it disappeared. This was my cue to move position once more.

Male Red-Breasted Merganser are difficult to photograph from an exposure point of view given the black and white plumage. The head is particularly tricky as it turns from black to green depending on the light angle as you can see in some of the images.

It was a good way to finish off my year which had been a little odd due to being seriously ill at one point. Looking forward to 2013 I already have many photography plans forming which includes a trip to Romania and the Danube Delta in June which I am really looking forward to. I hope you will enjoy and join me regularly on my wildlife photographic journey through 2013.