Upland Ramblings

The winter before last I started photographing Mountain Hares in the Peak District. Last winter was basically non-starter for them as terrible weather seemed to coincide with my free time and I only managed one unsuccessful visit.

So I was looking forward to this winter. However, as you will have realised from the last few posts the weather this winter as been dire down at sea level so you can guarantee it will be doubly grim where the hares live at around 600m. So as every weekend approached I would check the Mountain Weather Information Service for the wind speed and also the level of the cloud base. Up until the New Year the weather has been a no go. Then finally on New's Years day the weather looked favourable and while most were sleeping off the excesses of the night before I found myself in the early morning heading to the hills. Since then I have managed another two visits.

The first visit and with all the preceding rain proved very soggy underfoot on the upland peat deposits and by the time I had finished crawling around, which is inevitable when photographing these shy animals, I resembled something emerging from the proverbial black lagoon. At first I thought something was wrong as the places where I expected find hares were all empty. Had their been a population crash?  It took 2 hours searching before my first encounter. With the stiff cold wind the hares had decided to sensibly take shelter on the other side of the hill! In the end  I managed to put a couple of hares in front of the camera. I had forgotten what hard work is involved with photographing these beautiful animals. Every photo ending up on the camera typically involves large amounts of trekking across the hills, subsequently followed by a long crawl to get in close to them. Every image is a hard won.

The second trip was fairly unproductive for me and for the first time I took my friend Steve to show him where to find the hares. Steve did well on his first trip and was pleased with his results. It was just one of those days for me where the hares were sitting in the wrong place when I came across them. In fact I only kept one photo of this back-lit hare which for a change I decided to give the selective de-saturation treatment when processing to just leave that amber colour of the eye.

The third session was last weekend and needed an early start to get up to the hares for first light with the rapidly increasing day length. The ground was frozen and the wind light which meant making a quiet approach was going to present some challenges. It was interesting to note during this visit a change in the hares behaviour, as the spring hormone rush had obviously started to kick in. Many of the hares I encountered, instead of sitting in eroded peat gullies were sitting up on vantage points presumably scanning the area for other hares. Of course, this made the already difficult task of approaching these timid animals even more challenging.

I spotted a few chasing each other and also noted the hares tended to be more in small groups of up to half a dozen in one small area. Again this made the approach more difficult with several pairs of eyes and ears scanning for unwelcome movements and sound. However, I still managed to get a few hares in front of the camera.

This session was hard work involving lots of slow crawling to try and get in a good photography position on the hares. I was certainly feeling some aching muscles for a couples of days afterwards. Overall, it was another enjoyable sessions which produced a few more images for the slowly expanding library.

Summer Foxes

With the weather continuing to be grim, its a good time to catch up with the perennial backlog of images needing processing. It is always nice to go back to a set of images you took a few months ago as not only does it re-stir the happy memories of the moment but inevitably you find a few surprise photos. This week I have been working through some fox images from a couple of sessions last summer in a friends back garden.

My good friend Steve has a wide variety of wildlife visiting his garden that includes for the last few years a pair of buzzards and foxes. Often the key to having a garden full of wildlife is to keep a constant supply of food and water available.  For the last couple of years when Steve and his family have headed off on holiday I have offered to visit to keep the food supply going and also this give opportunity for a quick photo session or two.

The garden includes an acre of oak woodland on a slope and close to the house falls away in a couple of terraces with the lower area being were the foxes are regularly fed and also come in to clear up spillages, particularly peanuts, from the various bird feeders. Steve has built a small hide down there for photography.

So I turned up for the first visit with a couple of jumbo tins of dog food for the foxes. Having checked all the bird feeders were topped up, I scattered the dog food around the lower lawn. The strong smell of fresh tinned dog food should draw the foxes in quickly. I went to go in the hide to find it full or garden furniture in temporary storage so quickly needed a plan B. Fortunately in my car I had my rarely used ghillie suit which putting on quickly transformed me into a bush. I found a suitable place to lie down, at some distance on the terrace above the lower fed area and waited. I decided given that I only had the ghillie suit to, and not wanting to potentially alarm the foxes, to sit further back and use thequiet and movements we 600mm lens. This would have the added benefit of reducing the angle from my slightly raised position. I had to keep very quiet and move very slowly so as not disturb them. Fortunately the wind was in my face blowing any scent away from them. They knew something was there, from the click of the camera shutter,  but couldn't work out what it was but this had the benefit of having a lot of the foxes look straight at me.

I did not have to wait long and a grey squirrel dashing up a tree and alarm calling with its rapid flicking tail announced the arrival of the foxes. There was a total of seven foxes visiting at that time, 2 adults, 2 of last years young and 3 of this years cubs. Over to the right hand side from where I was lying there was some low shrubs on the edge of the woodland and a various obvious fox sized path going into the undergrowth and as expected that is where the first fox appeared.

Over the next hour or so a number of different foxes appeared in front of me with the vixen being the most active. They are such beautiful animals and always special to have one in front of the camera. Later in the week I made another early evening visit going through the same procedure. During both visits the dog fox only appeared once briefly and seem to be suffering with an eye infection which I am happy to say he now seems to be fully recovered from. So I will finish off by saying thanks to Steve for the opportunity of spending some time with his foxes.

Great Northern Junior

Firstly big apologies for the lack of recent blog updates, it has been a very busy time for me with all kinds of things going on in the background.

The winter weather continues to be very poor. This is certainly proving to be one of the worst winters for weather and light that I can remember. The weekends when I tend to do most of my photography have either been plagues with dark grey skies or strong winds or both. As I look out the window now this is exactly what I am seeing. My shutter finger is getting very itchy.

A couple of weeks back I did manage to catch a few moments of rare sunlight at the end of the afternoon and headed up to the local marine lake before the sun disappeared to have a quick session with the long-staying young Great Northern Diver. I love photographing all divers and still have one on the list to do which is the Black-throated variety, which is a stunningly beautiful bird. Something I hope to try rectify in the not so distant future but will probably require a summer trip up to Scandinavia.

The young Great Northern Diver has been resident on the marine lake for many weeks, happily munching its way through the crab population. As with many long staying birds in very public places this one has become very accustomed to people, however has developed a tendency when surfacing or feeding to always be facing away from the perimeter footpath. So you always have to wait for it to turn before taking any photographs after which it usually shortly disappears underwater again. This is not the easiest lake to photograph birds as it covers a large area. However, it does have the benefit that around the majority of the lake it is easy to get close to water level on the surrounding path. Fortunately during my visit the bird decided to go foraging close to the footpath on the right side of the lake for the light direction.

Since visiting the bird its colouration has changed and it seems to be starting to develop a dark collar as it starts to slip towards the conversion into summer plumage. No doubt it will have long since departed before the conversion is complete. Unfortunately during my brief visit it was proving very unsuccessful in capturing crabs as I was hoping to get some feeding photos. However, the soft low winter light was wonderful and some very close encounters with the bird were had. Always such a joy to be in close proximity to one of these birds.

As a bit of extra news, I have recently booked this year's overseas trip and will be returning to the Varanger Peninsula in Arctic Norway at the beginning of June. Excited by the prospects of getting some ruff in breeding plumage back in front of the camera.

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.