Winter wouldn't be winter if I didn't find some short-eared owls to photograph, and after several trips to Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire and Leicestershire, I have finally found somewhere closer to home in Worcestershire that is starting to yield results.
Initial visits were hampered by the weather and restricted access due to floods, but braving the wind and rain I soon established where the owls were roosting and choosing to hunt.
Hence over subsequent visits I had a better idea of where to look for them and where they might head if they flew off.
However, as with these things it is rarely as planned. The image above was taken just before a "shower" that had been forecast arrived - that's the darkness behind the bird as the shot was taken around lunchtime... The shower lasted nearly two hours and afterwards, while it brightened up, the owls never came back out. Makes me shiver thinking about it!
With less rain falling, the floods receeded and I was able to access more of the area, and this meant opportunities to monitor where the owls were roosting. They tended to perch in or alongside a hedge (as the ones did in Northants years ago) but any images of them when they were sat on posts here were messy with grass in front and twigs and sadly litter behind. By biding my time though, I did start to get brief chances at shots of them as they headed off to hunt.
As is often the case when lots of rain has fallen, when drier times arrive, the ground starts to dry off and in a valley, fog forms. On a couple of visits I left the house in clear conditions only to arrive on site in thick fog.
On the first occasion, the fog lifted early afternoon and I watched a couple of the owls head off hunting through the thinning mist.
And knowing where at least one of them liked to hunt provided decent views as it perched up to rest.
That said, the mist added something to the images and created a somewhat atmospheric, ghostly effect when one of the owls perched up nearby.
Having seen the fog lift to yield sunny conditions the one day, I hoped the same would happen the next. It was very cold and calm, and despite wearing several layers of clothes, I was cold that morning. And after hours of standing round in the thick fog, it became clear, if you excuse the pun, that it wasn't going anywhere.
Perhaps because of the limited visibility, one of the owls landed a bit closer. Cue more atmospheric shots...
With some of the more usual sites (those I'd tried first) failing to deliver, an old friend contacted me to ask if I didn't mind meeting him at the site for a look around. Of course not! I enjoy company especially when there's lots of waiting around for hours. So at about 9 am, half an hour later than I'd planned (due to a rather annoying head cold) I was stood in the mud with Steve Seal and his partner Tracey, looking at an owl on a post beside the hedge. There had been six owls there earlier but a dog walker had allowed their hound to charge around the area where the owls roost, and spooked all but one of them.
After a stroll around the area, showing Steve and Tracey where the owls hunt and often hide, we followed the owls back to their roosting site and waited. Another barking dog caused one of the owls to take flight, and that was what I had hoped for, and grabbed some shots as it flew around the area near me.
It dived down a couple of times, but each time failed to catch anything.
But it was good just to see one in flight.
The camera did a good job of tracking the owl too, as it flew through tall stems, some of which were taller than me (not hard, I know).
After following one around the fields, probably not a wise move with a streaming cold, it settled on a post to preen. It didn't look overjoyed to be photographed doing so!
Having been on site for over five hours, Tracey along with almost all of the birders and photographers had called it a day and returned to their cars. Steve and I hadn't though, and our efforts were rewarded when the owl we'd photographed preening departed and we second-guessed where it'd go.
Grabbing some shots through a hedge, we started to approach quietly and slowly. The owl relocated to a perch slightly further back, but as we crept closer, it seemed more interested in what might be moving in the vegetation nearby. And without a band of people with us, we were able to get pretty close to the owl for these shots.
Not a bad day out for us all. Both Steve and Tracey left with images of the owls - I allowed both to make use of my 500mm + 1.4 lens combo for a couple of the perched birds, to get that slightly longer reach, and without the fog, I'd bagged a few decent shots too. The pint, cheese and onion roll and bag of crisps afterwards helped round off a fine day out.
The weather of late has been truly horrid. I can count the number of clear, sunny and calm days on half of one hand, and they seem to be landing on days when I am committed to doing something other than wildlife photography. The relentless windy conditions have called a halt to my feeding station on the local farm after one particularly gusty morning made my hide look like Mary Poppins' umbrella, and since taking it down, I've not had any chance to put it back up, that is if it still goes up...
Thankfully a great northern diver has decided to stay a while on a reservoir that is quite close to home, so I took advantage of a couple of hours one afternoon when the clouds broke, to see it fishing near the dam end of Upper Bittell.
It seemed quite unusual in the way it dived. Most divers I've seen tend to sink down into the water, gracefully. This one is more akin to a shag or comorant in that it actually leaps slightly to dive down. Perhaps because it is young, though it also seemed to spend a fair amount of time with its beak open, which made me wonder if it had some sort of breathing issue. Ever the optimist...
Good to see though and it had no concerns with me being on the bank nearby, even when a friend arrived and his dog wanted to play ball! The diver would drift out to the middle of the lake, preen and then head back to the edge where the great-crested grebes were fishing, to join in.
Unfortunately the lake has quite steep sides, so it is impossible (without being a member of the club there) to get any low-level shots. I asked some years ago if I could join and was told in no uncertain terms that I wasn't wanted. Their loss.
In a slightly more accessible area, a landscaped quarry not far from Hinksford (Staffs) a rather more exotic bird has made its home. A hoopoe, something I've not seen in the UK for years and tempted me over on a day forecast to be dry, which of late is unusual. Finding the bird was easy as there was a local on site and he'd seen it moments before I arrived.
Initially it was feeding in a fenced off area, and it was here that we managed to get some decent views as it preened.
In doing so, it would occasionally stretch its wings and raise that fantastic crown.
I had hoped it might pose on a stretch of the fence line, but it chose to fly out and on to the grassy slopes, where it continued to feed, pausing after any large grubs were unearthed and wolfed down, for a short doze. Although wary of the growing band of photographers and birders watching it, it wasn't put off its feeding. It actually seemed to be watching people as they wandered around, before getting back to the business of rooting out large grubs.
On a rare sunny day when I wasn't busy, I made my way to Cossington Meadows, a place I have been to before for the short-eared owls. Annoyingly this time, despite the area being fairly quiet in terms of people wandering around (perhaps because of how muddy it was), I failed to take any shots for much of the day, and wished I'd visited the hoopoe again instead. Or gone to the pub with my brother, who called about midday... Still, in the end I was just pleased to see the owls, even if they did appear just after the decent light had faded and failed to come particularly close.
So that wraps up 2015. The year has flown by. I just hope 2016 provides as many wonderful memories and experiences with wildlife as this one, but is perhaps a little bit drier!
One of the benefits of socialising in country pubs is that you can become friends with local landowners, usually farmers. Unlike Scotland where the general public have a right to roam pretty much anywhere, here in England permission from landowners is required to access areas, and more so if anything specific is to be rigged up.
Casual conversations with folks who work on the land can also have benefits, especially if they know you're interested in wildlife, and hence often offer up snippets of invaluable information about what they have seen whilst out and about.
As a result of such a conversation, and knowing the landowner, I am currently in the process of setting things up for photography of the wildlife on a farm. Having spent some time simply watching the site and noting what is present and where, I was able to install my one-man hide, which is basically a chair with a folding tent over the top. I soon remembered why I wasn't a fan of it, what with the back-ache from contorting myself to get in and out of it, the lack of any spare space in it, and the wet bottom after a night's rainfall.
Out with the old, and in with a new spacious pop-up hide, which is far better. Not only can I almost stand up in it, there's room for 2 or maybe 3 people inside. So my comfort sorted, what about the wildlife I hear you say. Well, with the oak trees all around, there are plenty of natural food sources for birds like jays and wood pigeons at the moment, but I had noticed good numbers of smaller woodland birds too, and needed to bring them closer to me.
With freedom to wander around the farm, I soon gathered enough bits of wood to create some perches, for a more natural-looking shot, but still chose to rig up a feeder stand beside them, as the initial beacon to attract the birds. Remembering that I had a spare post for this, all I needed were some feeders and seed. I figured that a simple seed feeder coupled with a suet-ball holder would suffice, and hope they'd spot the seed sprinkled nearby when waiting for a turn on the feeders.
The papers always see the downsides of spending too long surfing the internet, but one of the benefits is finding sites that can be bookmarked and used for future projects. One such site is Swallow Aquatics, who I found initially when looking for pond treatments (to try to manage the slime that builds up in my wildlife pond) but remembered that they also stock a good selection of products for bird food and feeders. Being on someone else's property, I want to minimise any mess I create, so went for some of the no-mess mix, some suet pellets and some general mix seed, plus a large metal seed feeder.
Products ordered and only a couple of days later, I had contact from Swallow Aquatics and also the courier to say when the parcel would be delivered. I do appreciate it when companies and couriers are precise in terms of delivery times, to avoid waiting around for hours for a delivery. I was given a time slot and the package arrived as stated. Now I had to hope the birds were as prompt!
Post hammered into the ground, feeders hooked up and filled, and it was then a case of sitting in the hide and waiting. The first arrival was a coal tit, followed soon after by a nuthatch. Both were interested in the seed mix, and the flight of these adventurers soon encouraged others to follow, with house sparrows, blue and great tits, dunnocks, robins and wrens calling in.
I had wondered if the fact that the feeding station wasn't particularly close to the hedge or trees might put the birds off, but they happily come and go, sometimes sitting for minutes at a time feeding. And, with the feeders occupied, as hoped, the birds waiting have noticed the seed put out on the natural perches, and take advantage!
Highlights so far, and it's only been in place for a matter of days, have been a rather mucky-looking female great spotted woodpecker.
A goldfinch...
The nuthatch, which was one of the first visitors and is such a poser...
And a jackdaw, which like all corvids soon realised I was nearby despite the hide, and took flight. Clever birds...
So you might be forgiven for asking why I have gone to all this trouble to set up a feeding station when I have previously blogged about the diverse array of birds I get in my back garden? Well you'd be right for asking, and the answer lies in what else is here on this farm.
You see, the reason I chose to rig up the feeders is partly to provide additional food for the birds on this farm, but also to provide me with something to photograph while the main subjects for this project sit nearby, usually doing very little (at the moment).
A pair of little owls. Something I most definitely do not get in my garden. The ultimate goal for the project is to be able to get some varied images of this pair of owls, and I am employing various tactics to do this. However these take time, and to relieve my boredom, the woodland birds are a most welcome distraction.
If you wish to follow any progress with the owls, please keep an eye on my Twitter feed (@petewalkden1973) though I will of course be blogging about them soon.
Summer appears to be over, and it's been a while since I saw a swallow darting across the skies in search of insects. They along with the subject of this post should be making their way across Europe and down to warmer climates, probably South Africa. Thankfully, before they left, they provided me with hours of entertainment and hundreds of fantastic images.
I am referring to the hobby. This migrant bird of prey spends its summer here in the UK where it breeds, before departing south again, usually in October. The adults tend to leave first, whilst their offspring hang around a little longer, perhaps to build up stamina for the long flight, and also to hone their hunting skills, necessary for life in general.
Back in May I marvelled at the returning adults as they hunted in numbers over the marshes in Oxfordshire. They soon dispersed to set up territories, and I was distracted by other subjects over the summer months. However, I always keep an eye on a few local reserves where I have seen them before, just in case, and as it happened, a hobby started to favour one such reserve early in September. It didn't take me long to go for a look and after a bit of a wait, the hobby suddenly appeared, whizzing overhead at speed to grab a dragonfly.
The reserve is called Marsh Lane and is a private location sited not far from Birmingham Airport. It's a good spot for dragonflies, so I am not surprised the hobby frequented it so often. On my first visits, the hobby would appear for a short period, generally hunting anywhere on the reserve. This made it tricky to predict where was best to stand, and invariably wherever I chose, the hobby would go to the other side.
I say "the" hobby, which is incorrect. At the start of September there were definitely two hobbies around. One adult and the other a juvenile. The adults have a brick red area on their underside (called red trousers sometimes) and their beaks are yellow with a dark tip.
Juveniles lack the coloured underside and their beaks are a blue/grey colour. There are other differences of course, but these are most apparent when looking at the subject through your bins or at the image on the reverse of your camera.
Towards the middle of September, the adult disappeared and only the juvenile remained. It would hunt initially for short bursts, of maybe 15 to 20 minutes at a time, before resting in one of the many trees around the reserve.
When it had filled its crop (the muscular pouch near its throat) it would go to the far side of the reserve and sit in a tree, from which it'd drop down to grab any dragonflies perched up on the reeds below. Unfortunately this perch was impossible to view from anywhere on the reserve without venturing off paths, so when the hobby headed over there, I knew it was time to leave.
As the days went by though, the time spent hunting increased, as the bird became stronger and more experienced at it. While there were still swallows around, I never saw the hobby make any attempt to catch one, staying focused on the insects instead.
By late September the hobby had started to favour one part of the reserve, which wasn't surprising as there always seemed to be dragonflies around. Probably because the stream ran in parallel, meaning the tiny insects the dragonflies were preying upon were in abundance in that area.
I had also ditched the idea of trying to photograph the hobby using the camera on the tripod. As smooth as the UniqBall head is, it limits how high the lens can point, and I just felt I had more chance if I held the lens instead. I'm not built like Arnold Schwarzenegger so can't wield the 500mm for hours at a time, but I found I could hold it up in bursts long enough to get sequences as the hobby hurtled by.
Though my back did ache after a couple of sessions when the hobby hunted continuously for over 2 hours! It was a good work-out for it and me!
I was amused at one point when my quiet afternoon enjoying the antics of the hobby was interrupted by the reserve land management team who were cutting and baling the hay from the meadows. Initially I thought that the session would be ended; the hobby scared away, but if anything the hobby hunted for longer. I think perhaps the disturbance from the grass being cut threw more insects into the air, and gave the hobby more targets. I found myself trying to follow the bird as it darted between the tractors!
According to the reserve's records, the hobby was last seen on the 8th October when it headed south mid-morning. By then though, I had amassed more photographs of it to know what to do with! A wonderful, exciting bird to watch, and I hope it succeeds with its migration. Maybe I'll photograph it in years to come, if it returns to the same area to start its own family.
Now I need to find something else to point the camera at for the winter...
An unusually short blog post from me for once. Today I zipped down the M40 to a small reservoir at Weston Turville in Buckinghamshire where a juvenile osprey has been fishing for a couple of weeks.
I managed to time my visit perfectly, as I'd just walked up the small slope to the end of the water when I saw the osprey was already out hunting. It dived at the far end, but fortunately for me (and the numerous spectators) it missed. So then it circled higher once more, and powered down towards where I was standing.
After flying overhead, it followed the edge of the water, briefly hovered before acrobatically flipping over and diving into the water. Pictures speak louder and far more clearly than words here...
With a firm grip on the fish, it was time to leave and find a tree to perch up in, to enjoy lunch!
If only all wildlife encounters were so time-efficient!
