Muted Colours

ONE OF MY HOBBYHORSES

I won’t write much about my activities last month. I was very busy with family celebrations, and alterations to the new flat (involving multiple trips to the tip, more to buy new stuff and hours of painting). The only things that have kept me approximately sane are my family and the repeats of ‘Round the Horne’ on Radio 4 Extra.*

But I have done a little more reworking of some old images. One of my favourite websites is The Online Photographer (http://www.theonlinephotographer.com/), although it doesn’t include much nature photography, the regular writers have some great insights into photography and the comments of the readers are well worth reading too. Mike Johnston, the site's editor (and a very experienced writer about photography), is proposing to publish a book of photographs contributed by members. It is intended that this will be a high quality production based loosely on the theme of muted colours.

I like this idea, indeed it is a hobbyhorse of mine. I do not like oversaturated images – maybe I don’t have saturated eyes or maybe my brain is already saturated by silly ideas. I distrust garish colours, is someone trying to dazzle me? Have they got something to hide?
Of course a shot a kingfisher or a tropical butterfly has to have saturated colours for the subject, but a plainer background is important too. I think that subtle colours encourage the brain to study an image and so to search out the details and nuances that it contains. Of course this is important in nature photography, but also in portraiture, street photography, architectural photography and so on.

Anyway, one evening while the paint was drying, I went back to my old files to find some favourite subtle colour shots which I could contribute. The first was one in my first blog post, a black-necked grebe in winter plumage as the sun was burning through the mist at Dawlish Warren. The only saturated colour is the red of its eye.

The second is a bull grey seal hauled out on the sandbar at Donna Nook NNR, Lincolnshire, just before the 2009 breeding season: the sand and the wind seem to be alien environment for him, but he looks totally contented. I love the way that seals' whiskers curl when they dry out completely.

In the end, I didn’t submit my third choice, which was taken in 2005 with my first digital camera (a D70). It is a young great crested grebe on one of the lodges at Moses Gate country park near Bolton. The remarkable pattern of ripples is entirely natural. The photo was taken as a front came in from the west, so that the sky behind me was bright, but the sky behind the grebe and overhead was a mass of dark clouds, and there was enough breeze to produce a few ripples. I do like this image, but I wish that the grebe was a little closer and that I had crouched to get a lower viewpoint. Because it was taken some time ago, it has a lower pixel count than the others and the quality is a little lower.

I don’t expect that either of my images will be selected for the final publication. I am absolutely sure that many better photographers will have submitted better images. But I feel that they are images which get much of their strength from their muted colours. And I like them.

I have lined up something new for tomorrow, so if things work out my next post will be a little different.

  

^*Rambling Sid Rumpo lives!

Note added 9th October, Mike has received over 2100 photos from 941 photographers. The resulting book should be really special.

Nailing a Few

FAVOURITE SUBJECTS AT CHESTER

24th & 28th August 2013

I suddenly realised that it was a long time since I had used my camera or stretched my legs properly, so I took time off from my chores on Saturday 24th to visit Chester Zoo again.
Unfortunately the light was rather grey and it was breezy, which could be my excuse for some disappointing photography. I could add that the zoo was very busy too, but I didn't spend much time in the busy areas. Actually I think that like a sportsman, I can be 'in good form' as a photographer but I also have bad days, when things don't quite work: after all taking a photograph involves hand-eye co-ordination, good body posture and pre-visualisation of an unpredictable situation, just like a batsman at the crease.
I spent a lot of time watching the black lion tamarins in their outdoor enclosure, I was pleased to see them looking well and they were very active, indeed rather too active for my convenience. I could see that they are more highly strung than the other species of lion tamarins, which is why they do not do as well in captivity. This was the best image that I managed with my 500 mm lens.

I did the spot a pygmy marmoset in the same enclosure, which was carrying a small infant. As I have written before, this species can be amazingly cryptic and the baby seemed to be asleep most of the time, so I could not get a photo where I could see the faces of both animals. Two friends posted a lovely photo on the ZooChat website, their secret weapon was their young baby, which happened to cry as they were watching the marmoset - which attracted the attention of the adult and the baby marmoset for a moment. I joked that I would have to think about putting a three-month old baby in my camera bag.
I did have one piece of luck, as I arrived in the Tsavo Aviary just as the keepers were feeding the birds with mealworms and locust hoppers. This attracted a brown-breasted barbet, which is one of the more secretive birds. I got a few nice shots.

This shot is the one that where I managed to nail it. Just about everything is right: I like the pose and the composition, the background is nice, the focus, exposure and colour are good and even the little things work - the branch hides the rings on the bird's legs and the profile of the beak shows the 'tooth' on the upper mandible which is characteristic of the larger barbets.
At least I had something to show from my day.

On Tuesday 23rd the Zoo announced that the baby Indian rhino had gone on show at just over 7 weeks old, although she would not be on view all day. As I was frustrated by my poor photos from Saturday and I had never seen a really young Indian rhino calf, I checked the weather forecast and decided to visit again on Wednesday. I prefer weekend visits as the M62 is usually very congested on weekday mornings, but I set off early and the delay was not as bad as I had feared.
I was delighted to see the little rhino 'Komala' with her mother 'Asha'. She is a sturdy little thing and already trying to eat grass: it was funny to watch her concentrating on chewing a couple of stalks while 'Asha' was tucking into great mouthfuls. The light was nice, but the positioning of the Asian Plains paddock and the viewing meant that I had to work contre-jour which is always more challenging than plain down sun snapshots. I have to remind myself to check my histogram display occasionally to make sure that the exposure is OK for some sample shots. Then I can reduce the contrast when I process my raw files with Capture NX2 to give more shadow detail, without losing the highlights.

The black lion tamarin enclosure gets some sunlight in the morning, but it filters through the trees which can give problems with patches of light and shade. I was pleased with this sequence.

The tamarins were quite vocal because they could hear (but not see) the golden-headed lion tamarins in the other Miniature Monkeys exhibit. The image below has the best Rembrandt lighting.

I also had the chance to work on the pygmy marmosets. I took quite a lot of images, but I think that I nailed two in decent light with both animals' faces visible and in focus. Although I was only shooting in landscape format (horizontal frame) when I looked at the first one I realised that when it was cropped it would also work in portrait format. I have posted both versions below, I think I prefer the vertical crop (but I might change my mind).

All images taken with my 500mm lens.

The Chillingham Cattle

FROM MY ARCHIVES

15th July 2006

A few days ago, one of the members on the ZooChat forum asked if anyone had visited Chillingham Park in Northumberland to see the herd of cattle that live there. I remembered my visit in July 2006 and I decided to look up my photos from that day. When I found the raw files, I recalled that I had used my first digital camera, a Nikon D70, and processed my pictures on an early version of Photoshop. I couldn’t help wondering what they would look like if I reprocessed them with Capture NX2, a more recent version of Photoshop and the skills I have acquired since 2006.

I really liked the results. So I posted a couple of them on the ZooChat website and I decided to post them here too. They reminded me how lucky I was to get brilliant views of the cattle. I also downloaded the text and images that I had posted on the Nikon Cafe website to refresh my memory.

In 2006 visitors had to walk over a hill from the castle, but there is a new car park now which shortens the walk. You still have to meet the warden at the entrance to the cattle enclosure where there is a shelter called the Hemmel. The cattle can be dangerous, so you can only go into their enclosure accompanied by a warden. It was a beautiful day and I was very lucky that I arrived on my own, between larger parties. The herd was scattered, but most of them were moving down the hill to drink in the stream. It happened that the warden considered that the nearest animals to the left and right were both untrustworthy and so she offered me a short ride in the Land Rover to get close enough for photos. I was delighted.

My first sequence of photos includes my personal favourites because they remind me of the wild character of the cattle and their place in the landscape. A large bull approached a cow and then called to the herd.

These cattle are effectively wild animals: the bulls smear themselves with mud (and less pleasant substances) and fight each other. Only the strongest bulls sire calves until they are defeated by younger rivals. In spite of many generations of inbreeding, this competition may have helped to keep the cattle healthy and vigorous. When I visited there were about 50 animals in the herd, but there was no undisputed ‘King’ bull and there had been a lot of fighting the day before my visit, which is probably why the warden was cautious.
There are other strains of white park cattle, but this herd is unique. The cattle are never handled or managed in any way, except that they are given some hay in bad winter weather. No one knows when the herd was established, but the park beside Chillingham castle has been enclosed since the 13th century. Detailed records only go back to 1692, but it is believed that no new blood has been added to the herd. These animals are one of the most primitive surviving breeds of cattle, in many ways resembling their extinct wild ancestor, the aurochs. Charles Darwin took a great interest in them when he was studying the effects of domestication. The cattle are so important that a small reserve herd has been established in Scotland, just in case foot and mouth disease arrives at Chillingham.

Shooting photos through the open window of the Land Rover was exciting, it was effectively a twenty minute safari in the heart of Northumberland. The cattle know the Land Rover because it carries their winter feed so they came closer as they walked down to the beck. I realised that I had no excuse for poor photographs.

A young bull and a cow approach - note the wound behind the bull's foreleg, probably from the previous day's fighting, it looks black because of the flies clustering on it.

 

The bull comes closer.
 

 
I also had excellent photo opportunities when two calves came close to the Land Rover.
 

All these photos were taken with my 300mm f/4 AF-S Nikkor, except for the last one when I switched to my Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro. In the end I could have used a wide angle lens (provided I stayed safely in the Land Rover).

Until 2005, a flock of sheep was also grazed in the Park. Once they were removed the grazing for the cattle improved and the herd now numbers over 100 animals.
I can thoroughly recommend a visit, for more details see the Chillingham cattle home page http://www.chillinghamwildcattle.com/page-2

The moral of the story? Keep your raw files as digital negatives which can be processed and reprocessed as required. Keep backup copies too!

Visiting a New Zoo

MONGOOSE LEMURS AT WILD PLACE

26th July 2013

Bristol Zoo has owned the Hollywood Towers estate for many years. It is just to the west of the M5, opposite the Cribbs Causeway shopping centre. Bristol Zoo itself has only a small urban site, so it can only hold a limited collection of animals, particularly as modern welfare standards mean that animals are now given far more space than they had in the bad old days. There have long been plans to develop the estate as Bristol Zoo’s animal park in the country – the west country equivalent of London Zoo’s country park at Whipsnade.

There were ambitious plans a few years ago, but the current government’s austerity cuts to regional development aid put plans them on the back burner (the same happened to Chester Zoo’s plans for a big new African exhibit). But they have built some new exhibits, modernised some others that were previously used for holding stock off-show and adapted some farm buildings to provide facilities for visitors. When everything was ready, Wild Place opened on the 22nd of July.

I called in on the 26th because I was passing and I was curious. I knew that there were only a few animal exhibits, but I was surprised to see that there were lots of play areas for children, nice gardens and woodland walks too. I felt that at the moment Wild Place is aiming at families with young children who want to spend a day in the country with plenty of activities for the kids and some animals to look at too. I hope it attracts plenty of visitors so that the animal collection can be expanded.

For the zoo enthusiast the best exhibit is the lemur walkthrough. It is nicely themed with some Madagascar theme displays in the first compound: pygmy goats, a schoolroom, a market stall and a wonderful trough for washing hands (a hygiene requirement after visiting the lemurs). The second compound holds ring-tailed, red-fronted and mongoose lemurs, with indoor housing and an open area which will look much better when the planting has grown a little. My favourites were the pair of mongoose lemurs. They are smaller than the other species but this pair was very active and they had the charming habit of keeping in contact by grunting softly to each other. Here is the female striding along.

The male enjoying a bit of aubergine (I think). Both photos taken with my 105mm macro lens.

A leaping lemur! This photo was taken with my old 18 to 70mm Nikkor zoom lens, which was the kit lens for my old D70, it was at maximum focal length and has been cropped too - I was using it for some wide angle shots of the collection for the ZooChat website, but I couldn't resist trying to capture the action.

Twilight and Daylight at Bristol Zoo

LOOKING UP OLD FAVOURITES

19th July 2013

I had not planned that so many of my recent posts would be about zoo visits. Circumstances have made it difficult to find time for a day viewing British wildlife, but I have managed squeeze zoo visits into my schedule.

I did this again on a trip from Manchester to Devon, when I stopped at Bristol Zoo. Unfortunately I had to set my alarm very early because Bristol Zoo is unusual in opening at 9 am, and many of its most interesting animals are in the Twilight World, which actually experiences its twilight hour until 10 am, when the lights go out. As many of the animals are fed in this twilight time, they are easy to see and it is possible to photograph them. But when the house goes dark, it becomes so dark that I find it hard to see much and almost impossible to photograph anything.

This Turkish spiny mouse is one of a large colony at the zoo. It's a species that I haven't managed to photograph before.

My two favourite species in the Twilight World are the aye-aye and the kowari. I saw both aye-ayes, but I couldn't get a decent photo of either. I was luckier with the kowari (or Byrne's marsupial mouse, if you prefer its Sunday best name). This species is a true Australian marsupial, larger than your average mouse with big ears, a pointed nose and bushy tail - but it is actually a carnivore, closer in habits to a weasel than to any rodent, and almost indecently cute to boot. Bristol has the only group in the country; they arrived last year and I see from the zoo's Annual Report that they bred successfully too. Good show!

Photography in low light settings is tricky. I never like to set the ISO too high, this image was taken at 640 ISO, exposure 1/10th sec at f/6.3 and I underexposed by 1 stop so that it doesn't appear to be taken in normal illumination. I used my 105mm Micro-Nikkor with Vibration Reduction and I also held my rubber lens hood against the glass of the cage front to minimise camera shake. Even so, I needed to take a lot of shots to get one with adequate exposure, accurate focus and no significant subject or camera movement. In difficult circumstances it's sensible  take extra shots to improve your chances of getting a decent one.
In processing the shot, I used the colour of the dark grey nest box to set my neutral grey, which got rid of the yellow cast from the lamp over the cage. I also reduced the colour saturation of my original image to produce an image which matched my memory of the scene: of course I know that's a pretty unreliable process, but remember that at night all cats are grey, so in twilight I feel confident that all kowaris are fawnish.

Out in the daylight, I enjoyed walking around the zoo. It's been nearly a year since my previous visit and I was pleased to see some more of my favourite animals. Regular readers will have worked out that I like gorillas and I first visited Bristol to see Daniel, the first gorilla born in England, 40 years ago. Daniel and his father Samson passed away many years ago, although his mother Delilah is still alive in Belfast. The old gorilla house was demolished long ago too; it was replaced by the Ape House, which was converted into the Twilight World. At that time, Bristol sent the chimps and orangs away and moved the gorillas into new accommodation that was previously the elephant house. 

The gorillas have done so well that they are now extending and modernising this building. The indoor part is off-show during the building work, so I didn't see the gorillas until their 12.30 pm feed because they stayed out of the July sunshine until lunch was served. Even then it was difficult to get photos because the gorillas wanted to stay in the shade and they all went back inside as soon as they could - except for old Salome and her son. Salome relaxed in her favourite shady spot in the shelter, while little Kukena found a carrot that the others had missed and settle down to eat it. Kukena will be two in September and is growing well, he can now climb the old tree on the gorilla's island and he is happy to be out of Salome's sight for a few minutes. I needed my 500mm lens for this shot.

Finally, from the Reptile house, a colourful panther chameleon from Madagascar and a plainer common chameleon from southern Europe, showing some of the extraordinary adaptations of these strange lizards. I used the 105mm macro lens again.

Mainly Miniature Monkeys

MORE FROM CHESTER ZOO

16th July 2013

I went back to Chester Zoo hoping to see the baby Indian rhino, but I had no luck with that.
I was also hoping to photograph the black lion tamarins - I had good views of them indoors on my first visit to the Miniature Monkeys exhibits, but the Eastern pygmy marmosets in the outdoor part of the same enclosure gave me marvellous photo opportunities.

The outdoor enclosures in Miniature Monkeys are completely open and thickly planted with shrubs and mature trees. These are carefully pruned so that the marmosets and tamarins cannot jump over the barriers which have smooth inner surfaces so that they cannot be climbed either. The pygmy marmosets are the smallest monkeys, they are cryptically coloured and they creep around the enclosure - quite different from the agility and dash of the other species of marmosets and tamarins. This makes them hard to see and they also spend a lot of time looking around as if they are checking for predators. Several years ago I watched a kestrel eating a mouse in an oak tree in Miniature Monkeys, it then flew across the path and inspected the floor of the other enclosure obviously looking for another rodent. This happened before the pygmy marmosets arrived, but I have no doubt that a kestrel would be capable of catching an unwary pygmy marmoset - so it is as well that this species is so cautious.
The individual above was sitting quietly in a patch of sunlight at the top of a shrub: a perfect pose for my 500 mm. A different one gave me a sequence as it crept along a dead branch, it then moved across to live branch and started to bite the bark to feed on the sap, which is part of the natural diet of marmosets. You can see more bite marks on this branch.

There was also plenty of action at the giant otter's pool. You can see that the two cubs are still significantly smaller than the adults when they are all out of the water; but in the water it's much harder to tell. I think this shot shows the two cubs in front of their mother 'Icana'. I love the water lilies in their pool, they look very attractive and the otters seem to like them too.

In Realm of the Red Ape, the light was very good in the aviary of the Timor sparrows and scissor-billed starlings, but this male splendid fruit dove hogged the spotlight. I used my 105mm macro lens for this image (and for the photos below too).












Back at Miniature Monkeys, I finally managed a nice shot of a black lion tamarin (or golden-rumped lion tamarin if you prefer). This pair are the only specimens in mainland UK and although I am glad to see them on show, I am also disappointed because they been kept off-show at Chester for a couple of years in the hope that privacy would let them breed. Their move to Miniature Monkeys is a sign that the zoo has virtually given up hope of success. I have written before about this species; it is the most sensitive and delicate of the three species of lion tamarins in zoos, although this pair seemed to have taken their move well. I am afraid that in few years time they may have disappeared from zoos in Britain and perhaps in Europe too.
I am told that these animals are now using the outdoor enclosure too, so I will try to take more photos of them soon.
Finally a photo of black rhino calf 'Embu' at two and a half weeks old, with his mother 'Zuri'. They were out in the paddock, but the grass was too long for decent photos of the little guy. I took this one as the keepers enticed 'Zuri' back into the yard with some pellets before taking them in for the night. The background is pretty horrible, but it shows how much the calf had grown since my previous visit.

Touring Chester Zoo with a Curator

MANAGING A MODERN ZOO

6th July 2013

On Saturday 6th I toured Chester Zoo with a party of people from the ZooChat website in the company of the Curator of Mammals, Mr Tim Rowlands. We have had several of these tours over the past few years, Tim or one of the other curators gives us some insight into the working of the zoo and we make donations to one of the zoo's projects. We have a few ground rules: the zoo never announces animal pregnancies* and we understand that negotiations about the transfer of animals between zoos are sometimes too delicate to be discussed. On the other hand we sometimes see off-show areas of the zoo and occasionally we learn an interesting piece of news off-the-record. I won't break any confidences here of course, but I can describe what I have learned about the way this large and successful zoo is managed.

I think I can best explain this by writing about the zoo’s Eastern black rhinos. We started our tour with these animals and Tim introduced us to one of the team of rhino keepers. I remember the first pair of black rhinos at Chester more than 50 years ago: they bred successfully in the old house which is hardly changed, except that it is now off-show. But for many years the rhinos at the zoo did not breed at all. In spite of their size and proverbially thick skins, black rhinos are sensitive creatures. They have individual personalities and preferences. In the past few years, better management, including testing of the hormone levels in the dung of the females, has helped the keepers to arrange the mixing of males and females producing better breeding results. Tim was formerly a keeper on the giraffe section, so he knows how important skilled keepers are for getting the details right.

Chester now holds 2 bulls and 5 cows of this highly endangered species and 3 calves have been born since last October. Port Lympne Animal Park in Kent has a similarly sized herd and recently Chester sent the young bull ‘Asani’ there. ‘Asani’ is the number one son of Chester’s bull ‘Sammy’ who was bred in Japan and is unrelated to the other rhinos in the European studbook, so this move will help to widen the gene pool.

There are four interconnected rhino paddocks and one house on-show in the zoo, with three more paddocks and three houses off-show (although the paddocks can be seen from the entrance road and the car park). Recently simple shelters have been built in several of the paddocks to provide shade allowing the rhinos to spend more time out of doors, further improvements are planned. 

In the Tsavo house we saw female ‘Zuri’, who was born at Paignton Zoo, with her week old bull calf sired by ‘Magadi’. All baby animals are cute, but I think a baby rhino’s combination of sturdiness and vulnerability is particularly charming – although they grow into tough muscular beasts remarkably quickly. I love the ring on his face where his second horn will grow. The calf has been named ‘Embu’ since our visit. The lighting inside the house is always poor and I knew that most of my photos would be blurred even with a high ISO setting. I chose the low value of 200 ISO and took lots of images, resting the camera on the barrier and trusting the VR feature (vibration reduction) on my 105mm lens, to produce a decent shot when the calf was still for a moment. I have done some colour correction to compensate for the mixed lighting, but I haven’t quite got rid of the pink cast in the calf’s shadow.

Each species in the zoo has its own special requirements, although only a few are as demanding as the black rhinos. Some species do so well that it becomes hard to find suitable homes for surplus stock, other species run into problems and in the end the curator has to decide the best way to solve them. As we walked around the zoo we talked about the animals and the exhibits as we passed them. When we stopped between the oryx and the zebra we asked Tim about progress with the Islands development. From this point you can see the newt-proof fence surrounding the Islands site, which is over 110 000 square metres, almost all outside the current area of the zoo. The first step has been the capture of a large number of great crested newts which have been released into other areas of the zoo's land, one part is being developed as a nature reserve. This is a legal requirement, but the zoo must also be seen to set a good example by protecting this locally endangered species. It also shows the foresight of the zoo’s founder, George Mottershead, who bought up a lot of land along the zoo’s original boundaries, providing space for future projects.

Work will soon start on site to provide services (electricity, water and drainage) before building begins. There will be a large Indonesian house, holding the zoo’s Sumatran orang utans plus birds and macaques, a smaller house for Komodo dragons, with further mammal exhibits and aviaries. There will also be a restaurant, a shop and other visitor facilities. Landscaping, planting and the introduction of the animals is due to be completed around Easter 2015. The total cost will be around £30 million, so the zoo’s managers have been checking and rechecking the plans. As I have mentioned before, Tim has already started to bring in new stock for some of the Islands exhibits, so far the banteng and a Malayan tapir have arrived. I am sure that the other curators will be planning their exhibits too.

* As I was drafting this, Chester Zoo announced that shortly before midnight on 7th July (the day after our tour), 'Asha' the female Indian rhino gave birth to her first calf. Tim did not give us the slightest hint of this.