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Fishing Ospreys

...s the way nature works, the week before they had had an average of 4 to 5 a session.   Wednesday: Up at 3.30 AM again and ready for action at 4.15. Once again a few birds in the air but no dives, and then about 7.30 the fateful words on the radio, ‘circling, circling…….DIVING…No aborted!’ the tension was killing us as this bird kept starting a dive and aborting as we were ready then stood down, talk about adrenalin, and we are only taking photos! Eventually we got ‘circling, circling…….DIVING!’ and we got the splash as the bird came in but it missed and didn't get a fish. We got some more shots as...

Dive Dive Dive !

...Another couple of mornings spent down at the stream in Reymerston with up to 3 Kingfishers, although one female is the constant star. Now every time when I arrive at the spot before dawn she is already there looking for fish, and my presence doesn't seem to bother her too much as I can get quite close before she moves off. The farmer has put a small herd of bullocks in the field which use the Kingfisher feeding spot as a watering hole, so now I have to keep a wary eye out for them as well as they have chased me off once already!      Even though the stream has plenty of fish, I always take some sticklebacks and put them in a colander set just...

Red Deer Rut

...A nice day spent at the weekend in Richmond Park with fellow photographer Andy ‘Chester’ Brown amongst the Red Deer that are starting the annual ‘Rut’. The big stags have their fully developed antlers and boom and bark at each other as they establish their territory ready for breeding. Some walk through the foliage and gather as much of the fern on their antlers to make them look bigger and more threatening before charging at any rival stag that wanders across its path.             We got there before dawn and were surprised to see 3 urban foxes as wandering about around the streets near the entrance, no...

Ospreys in Scotland part 2!

...l of good natured ‘banter’ flying about! We got to Rothie and met John the ‘spotter’ again, and got settled down at 5AM into hides 1 and 2 and waited in anticipation again for Johns voice to crackle over the radio, ‘Dive’ Dive’. As we adjusted settings and photographed the ducks on the pond to keep up with the ever changing light we were breaking the ice and chatting with each other to pass the time. I had a 300mm f4 lens on my Canon 1DX this time which was perfect to make sure you get the composition in, and brought my 500mm just in case we had a lot of dives and I could experiment with close ups etc. As ever there were a few Ospreys around, but...

Precious moments with a Vixen.

...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 tryi...

Seal Pups at Horsey

...Nice trip to Horsey on the east coast in the winter sun. There are over 1300 seal pups now along the coastline, all looking cute in their fresh fur. Plenty of fights amongst the adults, they really are quite vicious with blood flying everywhere. Over the next month the pups will rub their fur off so they can go in the water and learn to fish to survive. At the moment they take on about 2.5Litres of their mothers milk.     ...