Glimpses of Wildfowl and Wetlands

SLIMBRIDGE & MARTIN MERE

29th October and 4th November 2013

November has been a busy month, and I have had some computer problems, so I don't have much to show here.
A quick visit to Slimbridge gave nice views of a group of cranes from the Great Crane Project foraging in the Rushy Pen.



I was also pleased to get a nice shot of a shoveler drake feeding in the sun directly in front of the Martin Smith hide. I always think that the shoveler is most colourful of British ducks.



My day at Martin Mere was rather frustrating, when the light was good there weren't too many birds around; when the birds arrived the light went off. In addition I too a lot of blurred shots: I have decided to give up on my bean bag, resting my long lens directly on the hide's window frame gives much better results.
The only photo I really liked was this one of two whooper swans, shot from a lower angle than usual against a bright blue sky. I had to clone out a wing from the bottom left hand corner.

High Tide Again

SONGBIRDS ON THE SHORE

24th October 2013

You never can tell with wildlife. My second high tide watch at Dawlish Warrren in October, on the morning of the 24th, was completely different from the previous one. The tide was not so high and there were hardly any waders near the hide, just a few grey plovers and a turnstone in company with the usual suspects, some crows and a dozen assorted gulls. All the other birds chose to roost on the other side of Bight. 

But my attention was immediately caught by a beautiful wheatear on the little beach beside the hide; this is just a patch of pebbles, a strip of sand and a miniature sand dune above the mud, with some saltmarsh behind. It is decorated with the usual line of dead seaweed brought in by the tide and occasional bits of rubbish. I was surprised to see the wheatear as I expected that all the summer visitors would have left. Fortunately it came quite close and posed nicely to let me get a photo.

I don't know this species well, but I think this one looks quite plump. I don’t think it had fluffed its feathers up, so it must have been fuelling up for its migration.

I realised that it was a day for passerines when a couple of linnets arrived at the edge of the saltmarsh and a little brown job arrived on the shoreline. At first I though it might be a skylark, which can come near the hide in winter; but I quickly realised that I was mistaken. It had no crest, was too small and too olive in colour and the absence of any proper distinguishing marks made it clear it was a meadow pipit.

Actually there were at least two pipits, probably more, as they were very active, coming and going, searching up and down the tideline and foraging in the stranded seaweed. Eventually one came very close to the hide.

To my frustration, I wasn’t able to get good photos of the linnets which returned to search among the pebbles. Neither did I get photos of the dunnock or the wren which turned up briefly. Of course the activity aroused the attention of the local crows, a few looked in at the far end of the beach to see if anything deserved their attention, but they didn’t stay too long.

Between the arrivals and departures on the beach, I watched the estuary and I was delighted when a party of Russian brent geese swam up to feed near the hide. The light was perfect for this photo of an adult.

A party of starlings came in to work their way down the beach, giving me excellent views of their tails: but when they turned and came back again I was able to see that they were probing deeply between the pebbles and in the sand, acting quite like dunlin. I’m not sure what they were catching, but they seemed to find it rewarding. As ever, close views show how attractive and interesting starlings are.

The tide had turned and the light was starting to fade as the final act happened. A meadow pipit returned and stood near the hide for a moment. I don’t think I ever expected to see a photo of a meadow pipit in such a striking pose, I certainly never imagined I would take one.

It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. I saw no rarities, but I had splendid views of interesting birds and I took a few nice photos too. That is enough.

 

High Tide at Dawlish Warren

OYSTERCATCHERS , WIGEON AND AN OWN GOAL

16th October 2013

There is a hide at Dawlish Warren National Nature reserve which looks out over the Exe estuary, it is next to the shallow bay, known as the Bight, behind the sand dunes of Warren Point. At high tide, the Bight is completely flooded and waders gather to roost at  both its ends. The southern end is right in front of the hide.
I took an afternoon off from my housekeeping and family duties on the afternoon of Wednesday 16th, which was a beautiful day. I was in the hide with my kit ready in good time before high tide. There were plenty of oystercatchers mustering in the area as the tide rose and I got some nice shots as they came closer, using my 500mm lens with my 1.4x converter.

But then I made a big mistake. The oystercatchers were moving to the right hand (western) end of the hide, so I moved along and tried to open another window to get the light at a better angle. Unfortunately I was not careful enough and the birds were too close, so they flew off.
I was mortified. Disturbing birds at a roost is very bad practice. Fortunately the other roost was undisturbed so the birds got a rest. It was also lucky that there were no other birders around, or I would have spoiled their afternoon too. I have learned to be much more careful in the future and I will open windows in anticipation well before the birds arrive.


The only birds that came close to the hide were a small party of wigeon. This drake was in beautiful plumage and showed well in the light.

Lyme Bay day

LOOKING FOR DOLPHINS AND SEA BIRDS

8th October 2013

Earlier this summer I asked to be put on Naturetrek's mailing list for day trips in Lyme Bay: it's been too long since I had a boat trip and I wanted to see the white-beaked dolphins which are the star attraction of this area of the English Channel. I had quite given up hope, when I received an e-mail announcing that the weather conditions were now favourable and two trips had been arranged. I booked on the second trip on October 8th.
After an early start I arrived on time at West Bay (near Bridport) and was given two pieces of news. The good news was that the first trip on the 6th had not seen any white-cheeked dolphins but they had seen a minke whale and a pod of common dolphins. The bad news was that the boat had developed engine trouble doing a survey on the 7th, but they had found a substitute vessel. That wasn't a problem as we set off, but by the end of the day I was suffering from the noise of the engine and the hardness of the wooden seats.
The weather forecast was not awfully good; but the light was nice for most of the day and the wind wasn't particularly strong, but there was a swell which got stronger as we went further out, not surprising as we were heading into a south-wester blowing straight up the English Channel.

We did eventually see a small pod of white-beaked dolphins, but they only came near the boat very briefly. Unfortunately at this point the wind had got up and the sea was quite active. I managed one shot of a dorsal fin, which was almost in focus. One of the dolphins did breach nicely, but I was on the other side of the boat, so I only saw a dark shape behind the row of passengers.
However the sea birds did us proud. I was hoping to see storm petrels, which we did, without getting brilliant views. I got my tick. There were lots of gulls of course including kittiwakes, plus gannets of all ages, fulmars, a few razorbills and good numbers of guillemots. This was the biggest group of guillemots that we saw.

My favourite 500mm Nikkor lens was not an option for this trip: it's just too big and clumsy. It would be so hard to control that I'd probably belt someone on the ear with it - not good for an ear or an expensive lens. I used my old 300mm f/4 Nikkor in a waterproof cover, which is much easier to handle but does not have the same sharpness or contrast. Unfortunately I couldn't get quite enough depth of field to make the shot above really good - but it shows how different guillemots look at sea from our usual views as they crowd together to nest.
The real spectacle came when we saw large numbers of birds which had found a lot of dead sprats. These were probably discarded by a fishing boat which had caught them, but did not have a quota to land them - a dreadful waste from the fishermens' point of view and carnage for the fish, but a feast for the birds.
It was just not possible to pick out and identify all the birds. One of the experts spotted a Balearic shearwater - a really rare bird which is a speciality of the area, but every time I got my binoculars on something which might have been a shearwater, it turned into a dark-plumaged young gannet.
But no-one could miss the skuas. We spotted an Arctic skua, which I consider the best flier among British birds, and it certainly disappeared at very high speed. far more numerous but just as menacing were the great skuas (or bonxies if you prefer). Another lifer for me. I had expected they would be a little larger, but they really look powerful and muscular. Actually there were so many fish floating on the surface that they didn't need to use their bully-boy tactics, but they still looked dangerous.

I was quite pleased with these images, although they are quite heavily cropped and I had to discard a lot of shots which were not in focus or shaken as the boat pitched. But I'd love to have another try; next year perhaps.

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!