Blog
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A ‘banded young lady’…
2017-07-21 18:30:11 UTC
Granted, that title just doesn’t seem quite right. Nevertheless, it stands because I posted about a ‘beautiful young lady’ (Beautiful Demoiselle) a couple of weeks back. This one is the other Demoiselle damselfly we get in the UK; the Banded Demoiselle. Fairly obviously the ‘banded’ relates to the dark band…
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Kestrels - But in Guernsey?
2017-07-17 07:27:48 UTC
If you scan back in my blog, you will find I’ve been trying to take some images of kestrels in my local area (Hampshire). Unfortunately this has been a difficult gig for the reasons I’ve related in those posts. Consequently, I haven’t been wholly happy with the results so far…
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Damselflies Mating
2017-07-12 22:30:58 UTC
I’ve just added a new collection here featuring our Common Blue Damselfly exclusively in the act of mating and egg-laying. These were all taken one languid afternoon last week at the same spot on our local canal. I trust you enjoy.
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A beautiful young lady…
2017-07-10 14:57:03 UTC
Misleading title? Not at all; the name is right if a bit anglicised. We call this, possibly the most striking of our native damselflies, the ‘Beautiful Demoiselle’. But you need to be a bit relaxed about gender identity here because, despite the charming and quirky name, this is most definitely…
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New dragonfly…
2017-06-18 12:20:18 UTC
I had a close encounter yesterday at my local nature reserve with one of our more splendid native dragonflies - the golden-ringed dragonfly. These are big and bold dragonflies so they play firmly to my bias for wildlife. Forget the ‘Africa safari Big 5’. If you want to do a…
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A Hobby - One for the ‘life-list’…
2017-06-17 13:55:00 UTC
I’m not a proper birder, in a (very) small part because I don’t keep a ‘life-list’ of all the birds I’ve seen. I’m just not a list kind of person - it’s hard enough keeping my photos tagged properly so I don’t get completely disorganised. However, I do remember the…
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Orchids in the meadow…
2017-06-03 14:14:00 UTC
I don’t spend so much time on plants as animals. I probably should but I’m, by inclination, more of a zoologist than botanist. But, from time to time you spot something or, as happened on this occasion, it is pointed out to you by a fellow walker (thanks) that you…
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More robins - nesting this time…
2017-05-29 16:47:12 UTC
Something strange is happening in Hampshire. I seem to be seeing an exuberance of robins at present.
Several weeks back, a pair of robins decided to nest in a pretty ‘robinish’ type of place. A safe enclosed but airy and accessible barn that, in this case just happens to be…
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Bathing robins…
2017-05-07 21:43:00 UTC
The juvenile robins have been making great use of our garden. Think its about two weeks since I first saw them and, at the moment, the parent or parents (it’s hard to tell if both are involved) are still feeding these two young birds away from the nest.
The juveniles…
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A new bathing pool and garden robins
2017-04-29 09:05:24 UTC
Through the winter I’ve been making much more of an effort to feed our resident garden birds. I’ve also been giving them a wider variety of food than just say peanuts or the like. This has had a significant effect on both the numbers and variety of birds visiting the…
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A tale of speed and being so near and yet…
2017-04-20 17:01:00 UTC
… still too far away; in a couple of ways that I will relate here
Yesterday morning I took the dog for a walk. It was a clear blue morning with a few light cumulus clouds and a slight, if surprisingly cool, gentle breeze. As I often do, I took…
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Our common moorhen…
2017-04-18 10:21:16 UTC
It’s called the ‘common’ moorhen and it is. You will often see it on lakes, ponds or slow rivers or canals and we rarely give it a second glance. Possibly we overlook them because they are quite secretive and skulk at the edge of dense vegetation and will slip away…
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Experimenting with image (focus) stacking…
2017-04-11 17:40:29 UTC
(I’ve updated this post to include later results of using Helicon Focus as a comparison to Photoshop.)
This is just a sharing of a first attempt at image stacking when taking macro photos to share with a friend and anyone else who finds it useful.
I took a series of…
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A fine spring day. What to do?
2017-04-02 17:57:00 UTC
Well obviously, on one of the first warm spring days of April, you spend the afternoon closeted in your bathroom
Ok, so that is closeted in the bathroom with the camera mounted on the windowsill peering out into the garden watching the nesting blue tits come and go to the…
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Otters - first impressions
2017-03-27 11:31:00 UTC
I’ve just completed the first pass processing of the images from my otter watching trip to the Shetlands last week and have created an new gallery here. I faced a minor dilemma on which menu area of the site to put them. Originally, I was sure that otters should go…
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Shetland - Northern Lights
2017-03-23 22:38:00 UTC
One major surprise on my trip to the Shetlands this week was a great sighting go the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). I’ve never seen them before and I didn’t think a short visit in March would give the opportunity but luck was definitely on my side this time. It was…
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Keep a Lookout For…
2017-03-23 21:42:00 UTC
I’ve just got home from a trip up to the Shetland Isles where I’d been hoping to photograph and learn a lot more about Otters. I’d heard that Shetland is a stronghold of otters in the UK but they are elusive and shy creatures so I joined Richard Shucksmith who…
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Bird Ringing
2017-03-11 13:42:00 UTC
I’ve never seen birds being ringed before but morning I had the opportunity of going along to a bird ringing demonstration at a local nature reserve (Hazely Heath near Hartney Whitley). The ringing was being done by trained volunteer bird ringers from the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology). The BTO…
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Not so safe sex…
2017-03-10 15:08:00 UTC
Spring must definitely be in the air. A couple of posts back I shared some photos of mating, Canada Goose style. Today is more a lesson drawn from the ‘Handbook of Natural Selection’ about not getting too engrossed.
If you see toads or frogs this time of year there is…
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Little Egret
2017-03-10 10:48:00 UTC
Little Egrets are a relatively recent coloniser in the UK. I never saw one as a child and I can’t quite remember the first I saw in the UK but they have become steadily more common in the south of England to the point where they are a moderately common…
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Not Drowning but Mating*
2017-03-01 11:44:00 UTC
Earlier this week I was out at our wildlife reserve pond when I caught a sequence of shots of this pair of Canada Geese in a courtship display followed by them mating just a little way off shore. You might mistake this display and mating for a fight between two…
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Doh - Check those settings…
2017-02-28 12:16:00 UTC
Today, as usual, I took the dog out for a walk and, again as usual*, picked up the camera just in case ‘anything cropped up’. Unfortunately, I didn’t thoroughly check all the settings. For sure, I checked the exposure settings (aperture mode, and ISO to keep the shutter speed up…
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Growing activity and a photographer’s frustrations
2017-02-06 19:36:00 UTC
It’s early February and it’s noticeable that wildlife activity is picking up in the local woods and meadows. The herons are beginning to reoccupy the best nest sites in the heronry, there is more birdsong, I’ve got blue tits occupying a nest box outside my bedroom window and I’m seeing…
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Feeding garden birds in the winter…
2017-01-10 15:57:00 UTC
Each year I put up feeders in the garden and endeavour to keep them topped up, especially through the cold spells and when I’m going to be away. The garden has a strong ‘community’ of grey squirrels so I have to make sure I only use (expensive and sophisticated) “squirrel-proof”…
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Flying a Kite (& Happy Christmas)
2016-12-24 17:43:00 UTC
We are just past the shortest day and the sun stays frustratingly low (just 15 degrees at it’s highest right now) and correspondingly weak. That makes for short daylight hours long shadows and mostly low shutter speeds! When the sun comes out, you really do want to take advantage.
Many…