News from Gavin Bickerton-Jones Photography

Gavin Bickerton-Jones | 23rd May 2026 | Blogging

I am just back from a trip to a new country to me , India, on a Wild Aperture photography tour. The tour was based around the big cats in India, Bengal Tigers and Leopards, and was centred on two game reserves, Ranthambore and Jhalana, both places south of Delhi.   There were nine photographers in total, including host Tracey, and we were able to meet and break the ice at Heathrow before the overnight flight of around eight hours. With the 4.5 hours time difference, we arrived in Delhi around 8AM, all a bit tired, where we spent the day at a local hotel ready to leave for Ranthambore early morning, about a five hour drive. During this drive we witnessed first hand the Indian way of driving, which appeared to have few rules other than blow your horn when passing someone, but somehow worked without a major accident every 5 minutes! There were traffic coming the wrong way on a duel carriageway, motorbikes with 4 people on, no helmets, one even had a goat on! Herds of cows and Buffaloes wandering around the road, dodging traffic with skill. It was an experience and an insight into the beautiful madness that is India, a shock of colour, noise and heat. Once arriving at Ranthambore we quickly checked in and sorted charging points in rooms etc, had a bite to eat then off on our first of 11 game drives to the reserve. This is a 1400 sq/KM area with 10 zones, and Tigers can appear anywhere at anytime, or not at all, it is pure luck if you see one. The game guides are not allowed radios or mobile phones so can’t contact on a sighting, so all done by word of mouth as we pass other jeeps, and listening to alarm calls of other animals, mainly monkeys and deer.    I was in a jeep with married couple Marie (who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Tigers and their lineage!) & her husband Brian, and we stayed as a unit for the whole trip. The reserve is beautiful, just like Jungle Book with the banyan trees and wildlife, so was nice to get our first taste. Towards the end of the 4 hour drive we saw our first Tiger, relaxing by the river, named Kartik and a T number of T121, a male around 9 years old. Over the course of the next 5 days we had a morning and evening game drive, and saw a few different tigers, some briefly, but on 3 occasions we had great sighting and got some good photos. The first was when we came across T2505 hunting on the second afternoon drive. We followed him for a while as he stalked deer, then lost sight but found another tiger T120 Ganesh half in a pool of water. We stayed with him for a while and eventually he got up and walked right past us! The next top sighting was on day 5 PM when we saw T2505 again walking towards us down the road allowing some great shots, before lying down by the river. Later on his mother T124 Riddhi walked past through the grass. At each sighting there were between 2 and 8 jeeps and at least one of the big canters with 20 people on, so at times could get a bit frantic, so holding onto your gear is a necessary job as all the roads are very bumpy as well. I mainly used my Canon R3 with RF100-300 f2.8 and either a 1.4 or 2 times extender. I had a 24-105 on a second body for wider shots. The last top tiger encounter was when we spotted Tiger tracks in the dirt, and found Shakti T111 female lying under a tree, and then noticed her 2 year old cubs a bit further down the road. Unfortunately Brian was not feeling too good in the morning so missed this drive, and there was only Marie and I, and one other jeep for a long time sitting with them, it was a magical experience that will stay with me forever.   As well as Tigers, we saw Sloth bears with cubs, lots of bird life, monkeys Samba deer, spotted deer and blue antelope to name but a few, so there was always something to keep us occupied. And the forest reverberated to the sound of numerous Peacocks strutting their stuff.   Next it was a 4 hour drive NorthWest to the city of Jaipur for 6 drives at the Jahlana Leopard reserve. A s...

Gavin Bickerton-Jones | 18th March 2026 | Blogging

Great to see my fox picture in the British Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 finalist book. A lovely book with some amazing pictures in, well worthy a look....

Gavin Bickerton-Jones | 24th December 2025 | Blogging

Click on this link: https://www.gbjphotography.co.uk/index.php?page=gallery&name=2025-top-shots&cid=55 for my top photo picks from 2025. An eclectic mix of memories and events, from sitting in a freezing field waiting for Owls to show, sitting at the side of the road on the Isle of Man as bikes come past at 180 MPH, fighting with the crowd to get the shots at various gigs and sitting in a river at Dove Dale waiting for dippers to come out, to name a few! I’ve had photos accepted in various exhibitions, shows, competitions etc, and all have great memories attached to them. Happy New Year!...

Gavin Bickerton-Jones | 21st June 2025 | Blogging

Precious time spent with a local Vixen.   There is a bit of woodland near where I live, and over the years i have paid it visits, after i spotted some fox cubs there around 10 years ago. It is a small wood, with a bank in it that over the years Badgers and Foxes have sporadically made their home for a while.       Den on far left middle. Last year i spotted evidence of Badgers about, bedding material and fur on barbed wire, and sure enough I caught a bit of footage on my trail camera of a lone Badger coming out around 10 PM. This was in April, and over the next couple of months i went down there a lot with a flash set-up etc, sitting in the dark trying to get a nice shot of the Badger, but to no avail. I lost interest for a while, then in early April this year I visited again to see if any signs of activity. There were no Badger signs, but there had been digging activity and signs a Fox was around, so the trail cam was put into action again. This time i didn’t see any Badger signs, but there was definitely Fox activity and movement recorded on film, so I moved to stage 2 of my photography plan, little did I know what an emotional roller coaster I was about to embark on!   I spent the next week making a water proof housing for my EOS R Canon camera, and also a Sabre trigger which fitted nicely into a Chinese take away plastic carton! I then made a bracket that I could fit to a tree for a remote flash, and once ready I took it to the wood and set it up. The movement trigger was a laser, and you can set the frequency of the signal up as well as the length etc, so a bit of trial and error to start with. The camera battery was just the normal LP6-EN, and i made sure everything was fully charged, focussed on a point near the den and went home. The next morning I dashed off to the wood to see if i had ‘caught’ anything, and the camera battery and flash batteries were flat, so a positive sign maybe. When I got home i put in a spare battery and was shocked to see i had over 1000 shots, all of the same scene with no animal present!! I had to trawl through all the images just in case one in there had something on it, but no joy. On a positive note, no matter what time the images were shot they were nicely exposed and it had all worked, so just needed to fine tune the set-up. Over the next couple of weeks I put the set-up out  a few more times, tuning the trigger frequency so less chance of flash triggers, and I found some road kill on a bike ride so set that as a focal point, and after a few more blank nights with the shutter count getting less but still no Fox, I got there on the 14th April and all batteries were still alive, and I had 6 images. When I looked on the back of the camera I had a Fox in each one, success at last! A couple of the shots weren’t bad, and allowed me to play with exposure and flash power etc to hopefully get some better ones.                          Over the next few nights i played with the set-up etc, and every now and then I got her in frame, but not always perfect focus. I changed the set-up from looking up the ridge to the den to looking over a fallen tree nearby, where i had seen her go over on occasion, and put a bit of cat food or road kill out to keep her interest up, but nothing great for the next few days. And then something amazing happened. On the 20th of April it was a lovely evening with some late sunshine filtering through the trees, and I went about setting up the camera set-up ready for the night which usually took about 15 minutes. As I was focusing the camera on the tree, i glanced to my left at one of the den outlets, and a Fox head appeared and looked all around like a tank commander from a turret! I froze to the spot only about 5 metres from her, and she hopped out, had a sniff around, looked me in the eye and slowly walked through the trees and then came out towards me on a game trail through some nettles. She then stopped and had a good look ...

Gavin Bickerton-Jones | 23rd May 2026 | Blogging

I am just back from a trip to a new country to me , India, on a Wild Aperture photography tour. The tour was based around the big cats in India, Bengal Tigers and Leopards, and was centred on two game reserves, Ranthambore and Jhalana, both places south of Delhi.   There were nine photographers in total, including host Tracey, and we were able to meet and break the ice at Heathrow before the overnight flight of around eight hours. With the 4.5 hours time difference, we arrived in Delhi around 8AM, all a bit tired, where we spent the day at a local hotel ready to leave for Ranthambore early morning, about a five hour drive. During this drive we witnessed first hand the Indian way of driving, which appeared to have few rules other than blow your horn when passing someone, but somehow worked without a major accident every 5 minutes! There were traffic coming the wrong way on a duel carriageway, motorbikes with 4 people on, no helmets, one even had a goat on! Herds of cows and Buffaloes wandering around the road, dodging traffic with skill. It was an experience and an insight into the beautiful madness that is India, a shock of colour, noise and heat. Once arriving at Ranthambore we quickly checked in and sorted charging points in rooms etc, had a bite to eat then off on our first of 11 game drives to the reserve. This is a 1400 sq/KM area with 10 zones, and Tigers can appear anywhere at anytime, or not at all, it is pure luck if you see one. The game guides are not allowed radios or mobile phones so can’t contact on a sighting, so all done by word of mouth as we pass other jeeps, and listening to alarm calls of other animals, mainly monkeys and deer.    I was in a jeep with married couple Marie (who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Tigers and their lineage!) & her husband Brian, and we stayed as a unit for the whole trip. The reserve is beautiful, just like Jungle Book with the banyan trees and wildlife, so was nice to get our first taste. Towards the end of the 4 hour drive we saw our first Tiger, relaxing by the river, named Kartik and a T number of T121, a male around 9 years old. Over the course of the next 5 days we had a morning and evening game drive, and saw a few different tigers, some briefly, but on 3 occasions we had great sighting and got some good photos. The first was when we came across T2505 hunting on the second afternoon drive. We followed him for a while as he stalked deer, then lost sight but found another tiger T120 Ganesh half in a pool of water. We stayed with him for a while and eventually he got up and walked right past us! The next top sighting was on day 5 PM when we saw T2505 again walking towards us down the road allowing some great shots, before lying down by the river. Later on his mother T124 Riddhi walked past through the grass. At each sighting there were between 2 and 8 jeeps and at least one of the big canters with 20 people on, so at times could get a bit frantic, so holding onto your gear is a necessary job as all the roads are very bumpy as well. I mainly used my Canon R3 with RF100-300 f2.8 and either a 1.4 or 2 times extender. I had a 24-105 on a second body for wider shots. The last top tiger encounter was when we spotted Tiger tracks in the dirt, and found Shakti T111 female lying under a tree, and then noticed her 2 year old cubs a bit further down the road. Unfortunately Brian was not feeling too good in the morning so missed this drive, and there was only Marie and I, and one other jeep for a long time sitting with them, it was a magical experience that will stay with me forever.   As well as Tigers, we saw Sloth bears with cubs, lots of bird life, monkeys Samba deer, spotted deer and blue antelope to name but a few, so there was always something to keep us occupied. And the forest reverberated to the sound of numerous Peacocks strutting their stuff.   Next it was a 4 hour drive NorthWest to the city of Jaipur for 6 drives at the Jahlana Leopard reserve. A s...

Gavin Bickerton-Jones | 18th March 2026 | Blogging

Great to see my fox picture in the British Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 finalist book. A lovely book with some amazing pictures in, well worthy a look....

Gavin Bickerton-Jones | 24th December 2025 | Blogging

Click on this link: https://www.gbjphotography.co.uk/index.php?page=gallery&name=2025-top-shots&cid=55 for my top photo picks from 2025. An eclectic mix of memories and events, from sitting in a freezing field waiting for Owls to show, sitting at the side of the road on the Isle of Man as bikes come past at 180 MPH, fighting with the crowd to get the shots at various gigs and sitting in a river at Dove Dale waiting for dippers to come out, to name a few! I’ve had photos accepted in various exhibitions, shows, competitions etc, and all have great memories attached to them. Happy New Year!...

Gavin Bickerton-Jones | 21st June 2025 | Blogging

Precious time spent with a local Vixen.   There is a bit of woodland near where I live, and over the years i have paid it visits, after i spotted some fox cubs there around 10 years ago. It is a small wood, with a bank in it that over the years Badgers and Foxes have sporadically made their home for a while.       Den on far left middle. Last year i spotted evidence of Badgers about, bedding material and fur on barbed wire, and sure enough I caught a bit of footage on my trail camera of a lone Badger coming out around 10 PM. This was in April, and over the next couple of months i went down there a lot with a flash set-up etc, sitting in the dark trying to get a nice shot of the Badger, but to no avail. I lost interest for a while, then in early April this year I visited again to see if any signs of activity. There were no Badger signs, but there had been digging activity and signs a Fox was around, so the trail cam was put into action again. This time i didn’t see any Badger signs, but there was definitely Fox activity and movement recorded on film, so I moved to stage 2 of my photography plan, little did I know what an emotional roller coaster I was about to embark on!   I spent the next week making a water proof housing for my EOS R Canon camera, and also a Sabre trigger which fitted nicely into a Chinese take away plastic carton! I then made a bracket that I could fit to a tree for a remote flash, and once ready I took it to the wood and set it up. The movement trigger was a laser, and you can set the frequency of the signal up as well as the length etc, so a bit of trial and error to start with. The camera battery was just the normal LP6-EN, and i made sure everything was fully charged, focussed on a point near the den and went home. The next morning I dashed off to the wood to see if i had ‘caught’ anything, and the camera battery and flash batteries were flat, so a positive sign maybe. When I got home i put in a spare battery and was shocked to see i had over 1000 shots, all of the same scene with no animal present!! I had to trawl through all the images just in case one in there had something on it, but no joy. On a positive note, no matter what time the images were shot they were nicely exposed and it had all worked, so just needed to fine tune the set-up. Over the next couple of weeks I put the set-up out  a few more times, tuning the trigger frequency so less chance of flash triggers, and I found some road kill on a bike ride so set that as a focal point, and after a few more blank nights with the shutter count getting less but still no Fox, I got there on the 14th April and all batteries were still alive, and I had 6 images. When I looked on the back of the camera I had a Fox in each one, success at last! A couple of the shots weren’t bad, and allowed me to play with exposure and flash power etc to hopefully get some better ones.                          Over the next few nights i played with the set-up etc, and every now and then I got her in frame, but not always perfect focus. I changed the set-up from looking up the ridge to the den to looking over a fallen tree nearby, where i had seen her go over on occasion, and put a bit of cat food or road kill out to keep her interest up, but nothing great for the next few days. And then something amazing happened. On the 20th of April it was a lovely evening with some late sunshine filtering through the trees, and I went about setting up the camera set-up ready for the night which usually took about 15 minutes. As I was focusing the camera on the tree, i glanced to my left at one of the den outlets, and a Fox head appeared and looked all around like a tank commander from a turret! I froze to the spot only about 5 metres from her, and she hopped out, had a sniff around, looked me in the eye and slowly walked through the trees and then came out towards me on a game trail through some nettles. She then stopped and had a good look ...