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.

Late Season Owls

It has been a good winter in the UK for Short-eared Owls with a large influx of birds from continental Europe. Unfortunately for me, free time coinciding with decent weather to try and photograph these majestic owls seems to have been limited. The birds usually stay on their winter feeding areas through March before starting to disperse to the upland summer breeding sites. With an improvement in the weather this March and three birds being reported to be appearing at both ends of the day on the local marsh, I decided I would try to get some photographs before they disappeared.

Photographing owls always requires an element of luck as it tends to be done by standing in a spot and waiting for owls to fly close by as they quarter the fields in their buoyant flight searching for voles. My first trip was in the evening which proved to be unsuccessful as the light was not great and the birds all distant. I decided I would try an early morning visit when the birds would be front lit. This was at the time of a new moon which means that these daytime owls are limited in their ability to hunt visually at night, compared with a full moon period, which would hopefully prolong their morning hunting activities.

So an early alarm call saw me creeping out the house on a still and frosty morning with clear skies overhead. I was down at the site before sunrise, standing on the edge of a large area of salt marsh. Slowly the sky lighten behind me with the rising sun and it was a joy to hear the marsh slowly come to life with an increasing symphony of bird sounds.  Soon after the warm glow of the sun started spreading across the marsh two owls appeared and started hunting. They spotted each other and made a direct line towards each other for a mid-air tussle at distance before seeming to fly off into the distance which was not a very encouraging sign but they did return and one made several close fly-by in the soft warm dawn light.

Its is always a pleasure to watch these owls hunting, as they float low above the marsh before suddenly twisting downward to try and wrap their talons around an unsuspecting vole. The are such a lovely looking bird armed with a very penetrating stare from those bright yellow eyes.

By 8am it was all over and the birds went back to ground to roost. A brief but pleasurable session. I made another return visit in similar conditions about a week later although not an owl was to be seen. Maybe they had already moved on and I was lucky to just catch the very last on them in their winter haunts where hopefully they will return once more in the mid-autumn.

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.

Hoping for Owls

Not far from my home is a expansive area of salt marsh that forms the outer estuary of the River Dee. This relatively short vegetation, small creeks and ponds provides good habitat for birds but also for a range of small mammals which in turn attracts a variety of birds of prey. This is particularly the case during the winter months when birds like hen harrier and short-eared owls take up temporary home on the marsh to join the residents such as kestrel, barn owl and merlin.

The photography here is really a question of luck. Walking out on the marsh is discouraged to prevent disturbance of the birds and also presents some real dangers in terms of disappearing into the soft muds. So it is a question of finding a location along the footpath the runs along the eastern side where you have a chance of the birds flying close. The only way to get some results is to put in some time on the basis that the longer you are there the greater the chance of a bird flying into photography range. A game of persistence and chance.

Since the start of the year I have been making some occasional visits to try and photograph some of the owls. Barn owls have been doing well locally in recent years due to a lot of effort put in to provide them with nest boxes. These enigmatic birds show wide variability in the timing of the daily hunting. Some individuals will appear in daylight at either end of the day but many are strictly nocturnal so to achieve any success requires the right bird to be found. The patterns of the bird behaviour do change through the year with the birds forced to hunt in daylight during the demanding periods of rearing of their young.

During the last couple of months the Barn Owl I have been trying to photograph has shown nearly nocturnal behaviour with very brief appearances at first and last light when often too little light for photography which has obviously limited success. Several sessions have seen me heading back home with no or only a few photographs that have headed straight to trash. In fact I only really managed to get a few photographs, that I was happy to keep, from one recent session when we had the heavy snowfall. The cold weather probably forced the owls to stay out a little longer than usual. It was nice to get a couple of photographs of the ghostly form of the owl gliding through the light snow that was falling.

I was surprised when the owl appeared behind me, hunting along the verge of the the car park, and landed close by briefly having missed a vole.

The Short-eared owls are an easier prospect for photography as they are one of the few owls that regularly hunt in daylight so the chance of success is much greater. My efforts for these have been hampered to an extent by the dreadful weather we have had at the start of this year. How I have yearned to just have a few moments with the owls driftingclose-by  through some beginning or end of the day sunlight. Oh well you can't have it all.

It has been pleasure just watching these beautiful owls as they hunt in low buoyant flight across the marshes, looking for voles, with the occasional close fly-by allowing a few images to be captured.

I will probably keep putting some time in for the owls in the near future assuming I do not become distracted by other species. Photographing these birds is quite addictive. As always so much to do and such limited time.