Blog

  1. Purple Emperor - First Sight

    2023-06-27 10:45:32 UTC
    Quite exciting today as I spotted a purple emperor butterfly in my local woods.  This one of the largest and elusive butterflies in Britain and these days is really quite rare.  Very chuffed with catching this on my iPhone!   When I checked my guide book it made some interesting notes…

  2. Lapwings - Watching & Learning

    2023-05-21 15:36:49 UTC
    It’s well into May now and yesterday it was a nice late spring day so I decided to head down to Arundel to the WWT centre there to see what was happening.  Well. After driving round Arundel itself because there was a farmer’s Market underway in the town, I reached…

  3. Easter Sunday and a touch of warm spring

    2023-04-09 14:00:13 UTC
    It’s Easter Sunday (Sun 9 April) and we have sun and warm temperatures (today at least).  To prove it a couple of pics.  The first is of a slow worm basking in the mid morning sun and the second is of wood ants re-emerging from their nest and setting out…

  4. Hares - I learnt something today

    2023-03-24 21:50:25 UTC
    I went out again today to photograph hares; I’m on a limited timer for this year.  The crops are growing quickly and they will hide the the hares from my view in a couple of weeks.  So I took the chance today before it was too late.  The weather wasn’t…

  5. And, a partridge in a hare tree

    2023-03-17 21:37:32 UTC
    Sorry, couldn’t resist it.  While I was back taking more photos of hares, I managed to get a photo of another of our skittish creatures very close up.  The red-legged partridge. Lovely birds of the open grassland.  mostly seen at a distance and / or scuttling away from you.  I…

  6. Hares, at last.

    2023-03-16 19:10:37 UTC
    For me, the quest to photograph wild hares has been a long one.  I’ve written about it a couple of times in 2019 and 2022.  However, today I managed to get close enough to a number of them to allow me to take images with out having to crop the…

  7. Feed me. Now.

    2023-02-07 19:09:17 UTC
    So there we were today, taking a quiet wander along the River Test in Hampshire at Mottisfont Priory in Hampshire when I was ‘set upon’ by mute swan and assaulted without warning. I managed to get a picture of the culprit.   Well OK, truth be told, I massively exaggerate and…

  8. Winter Heron #2

    2023-02-04 10:13:00 UTC
    After keeping a close eye on the same site as shown in the last post, yesterday eventually furnished the results.  I hadn’t seen the heron here for a couple of weeks.  I suspected that the water levels in the stream had been too high but for the past few days…

  9. Winter Heron

    2023-01-12 17:22:02 UTC
    Over the past few days, a juvenile (last year’s offspring) heron has been coming regularly to a very small stream in the woodland where I walk my dog each day.  Nothing too unusual about that in itself other than I saw it twice on two successive days and at about…

  10. A little to early in the season?

    2022-09-22 16:33:48 UTC
    Last Saturday looked like it was going to be a fine autumn day (it was) so I arranged my day so I could visit Richmond Park at dawn to as close to as possible to that because the gates do not open until 7am.  I duel arrived at 6:40am and…

  11. Does anyone look out of the window?

    2022-08-04 10:30:56 UTC
    So here’s a thing…   Recently we flew out from the UK to Canada flying on a route that took us over Greenland, Hudson Bay, the vast plains of Canada before crossing the Rocky Mountains and landing at Vancouver.  The flight was a morning flight so all of this was comfortably…

  12. Return to the Great Bear Rainforest

    2022-08-03 08:56:23 UTC
    It has taken a few weeks to get organised and select some photos to showcase our latest mini-expedition but I’m pleased to share this Journey - Return to the Great Bear Rainforest here. I hope you enjoy this special area.

  13. Bears of the Khutzymateen - Trailer

    2022-06-23 08:01:36 UTC
    A bit of a heads up here.  We have just returned from the Canadian Pacific North West Coast and with a focus on the Khutzymateen Inlet.  This is a Provincial park that was the first and still the only park to fully protect grizzly bears in British Columbia.  It is…

  14. It’s that great spotted time of year

    2022-05-22 18:09:30 UTC
    May be it’s a little early this year.  Second half of May and we already have a nest of great spotted woodpeckers making a lot of sound and the parents frantically feed them.  Usually, I think his has been more of a June time event so its about two weeks…

  15. A few days in Andalusia (Flamingoes & Vultures)

    2022-04-30 16:16:59 UTC
    Last week we managed to get away to the Andalucia region of Spain.  We haven’t been to this area for over 20 years; the trip reminded us what a beautiful area this is, especially in spring.  Apart from grabbing a quiet time we manage to traveled into the interior up…

  16. Surprise Water Rail

    2022-04-04 08:24:52 UTC
    Yesterday, I popped one to the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust’s reserve at Arundel to see what spring was revealing.  Not so much spring though as it was very cold in the hides.  I was fortunate to watch a pair of peregrine falcons on the ridge behind the reserve and a…

  17. Hare Today

    2022-02-12 22:36:26 UTC
    Hares are difficult to photograph because they are exceedingly shy and have a tendency to bolt fast.  When, as in the first photo, they lie motionless and can be exceedingly difficult to spot so any slightly darker smudge in the field is worth checking with binoculars.  Nevertheless they are great…

  18. Dalmatian Pelican in England - do what?

    2021-11-04 22:08:06 UTC
    So, here’s a thing.  I like to take wildlife photos and rarely photograph captive animals.  I just don’t like seeing animals in captivity.  I make an exception here for this Dalmatian Pelican on a couple of counts.  First, this was the first Dalmatian Pelican I’ve ever seen.  They are huge…

  19. Touchdown

    2021-11-02 10:48:04 UTC
    I’ve been wanting to get this image of a Canada Goose for some time.  Yesterday, at the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust (WWT) reserve at Arundel I eventually managed it.  It’s a combination of the birds coming into roost from the right direction and landing close enough to me, the low…

  20. Move along, nothing to see here.

    2021-10-25 17:31:06 UTC
    Or, spot the seal.   I have just been processing some photos that I took a few weeks back in Scotland (here, at the shore of the Isle of Raasay) of a group of Common Seals.  What really struck me was just how well these animals were camouflaged against the shoreline…

  21. After the Rut

    2021-10-23 12:46:41 UTC
    Late October and the red deer rut here is now all but finished.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to my favourite spot, the Royal park in Richmond, during the height of the rut itself. Nevertheless, I took the chance today in somewhat unpromising weather conditions. This time, it worked…

  22. Stranded

    2021-09-27 20:10:10 UTC
    I does feel like I’ve been stranded for a few months, stuck on a rock and cut off from photographing wildlife.  Residual Covid lockdown effects stopping me getting out and about.  Well, hopefully for the next couple of weeks we can see a return to form as I’m up on…

  23. Project IR Continues

    2021-07-25 22:07:28 UTC
    Today was a duller day after a week of blistering heat and blue skies; except for the odd thunderstorm that is.  So we set off for a walk and dodging showers.  I decided to go Infrared again to experiment across some watermeadows and the chalk down that lie to our…

  24. An Infra Red Diversion

    2021-07-02 10:22:01 UTC
    Those who follow this blog will know I have a slight side interest in infrared photography.  Mostly this relates to my main passion of photographing wildlife.  However, I do photograph other things too but don’t share much of that here.  These images are more landscape but I’m sharing them because…

  25. Roe Deer

    2021-06-26 11:44:51 UTC
    I have been seeing more roe deer in our woods recently.  From time to time one of these small deer pops out and then quickly disappears.  Today, I was standing quietly in the woods listening to the birds and one walked out onto the woodland path in front of me…