Goldfinches Fighting Over Food In The Snow

This was one of those rare occasions when I was in the right place at the right time with my camera and 100-400mm lens, poised and ready to snap away. I had been watching Greenfinches, lots of them, all battling it out to get to a seed feeder, but two or three Goldfinches attracted my attention and I turned my lens towards them. At first I got a couple of photographs of one of them perched on a branch in some snow, and then, unlike the Greenfinches, the goldfinches tend to be a bit more polite and seem to take it in turns to feed. However, in the frozen temperatures when the ground is too hard for the birds to find food all hell breaks loose and its bird eat bird, so to speak. Even though there was a spare perch on the other side of this small Niger seed feeder the Goldfinch on the left obviously wanted it all to himself because he seemed determined to get rid of the one on the right, of course it could have been a rival male. Anyway, I captured this image as it happened and a couple of others that were no good, heads hidden behind wings or blurred with motion as they fought, it was a relatively dull day so I couldn't get very fast shutter speeds (as you can tell from the slight blur of the wings) and was already using the largest aperture available.

Hopefully the sun will show its face more often soon and I can continue with some more bird photography.

Photographing Birds In Snow

The snow arrived here in the UK yesterday and since this means our birds have to work even harder to find food it was a great opportunity for me to photograph some in my garden. I put some extra feed out and waited, and soon enough down they came, and with the snow and the sunlight it made for very interesting bird photography. Here are some of my favourite shots including a Dunnock, male Chaffinch and Starling.

I was finding that each shot needed to be overexposed by about 1 or 2 stops simply because the snow is so bright and reflects so much light that the camera is fooled into thinking there is more light than there actually is. Shooting using the camera's meter reading underexposes a snow scene and makes for very grey murky images, and there is also the white balance to consider too. Automatic white balance is usually pretty good but on the day I was shooting the sky was clear and blue which results in the snow appearing very blue, therefore I tried the cloudy setting which was better but found that I needed to set a custom white balance using the white of the snow as a reference.

Pigeon In Flight & Magpie

I have not had much experience photographing birds in flight so this is something I thought I would have a go at when the next opportunity arose. I was visiting the WWT centre at Arundel when I noticed loads of pigeons swooping back and forth from the roof of the visitors centre as seed was thrown for the various wildfowl in the ponds/lakes. So I turned my camera on the pigeons and waited for them to make another pass, which the soon did, and I tried this several times with a mixture of results. Two of the best shots from this attempt at 'birds in flight' photography are shown here, and although the exposure is a bit dodgy on the wing of the bird in the first image, I am still satisfied that this is a good starting point to build upon.

Magpies are such beautiful birds and although they are not the best loved of all British birds I think they make great subjects for bird photography, they are charismatic and large enough that you have more time to capture them as they fly by or hop along the ground. This shot was taken when the sun was fairly low in the sky which makes for a warm and bright image with the magpie framed by the greens and yellows of the leaves on the tree.

Various Bird Photographs

Over the last few weeks I have photographed a fair few birds near my home and here are a selection of the best. At the top we have one of Britain's smallest birds, a Wren, then a colourful Greenfinch, the hugely popular Robin and at the bottom is a male Chaffinch.

Chiffchaff...More Bird Photography!

I was delighted to find that I have attracted another new bird to my garden that I have never seen before, this time a Chiffchaff. Before I got a good view of this well camouflaged little bird I had mistaken it for a Greenfinch, however, once I got a good view of it I soon realised that it was not only too small but also had a distinctive green flash through each eye. I looked on the RSPB website and in a reference book of British birds and found it to be a Chiffchaff. I didn't get many shots but am pleased that I have been able to photograph a different garden bird and have seen him once since so hopefully there will be more and more now they know there's food and water available.

Studio Macro Wildlife Photography

I have recently become interested in macro photography and have been shooting bees and other insects in the garden, but when I found a dead wasp in the house I noticed that it still looked as vibrant and beautiful as it had when it was still alive. This idea fascinated me and so I collected a dead woodlouse and moth and took them with the wasp in to the studio. I had thought about ways in which to photograph these beautiful insects and tried various approaches, however, the images you see here are the ones that really stand out for me. The idea was to photograph as if cataloging them for a museum archive or something similar, although I did add some colour by placing a piece coloured card behind each one in an attempt to increase the intensity of their colour. Therefore, even though these little creatures are no longer living, their intricate detail and natural beauty is still more than evident.

RSPB Reserve - Pulborough Brooks

A few weeks ago I took a day trip over to an RSPB reserve, Pulborough Brooks in West Sussex, armed with my camera and praying for a bit of sunshine which luckily I got on and off throughout the day. Previously I have only visited a couple of RSPB sites and not only loved them for their natural beauty and the chance to be out in the country, but also because of the wide variety of birds and other animals that you can see with a bit of patience. So not knowing exactly what to expect I arrived at Pulborough Brooks and set off into this rather large and very beautiful reserve, stopping almost every few steps to watch birds, butterflies and rabbits, and also to try and snap a few of them too. Unfortunately I am somewhat restricted by my 100-400mm telephoto lens as it mean that I have to get closer to the subject than is often possible, particularly from the hides that are, in this instance, set back from the wildlife. This is to be expected to an extent because the RSPB aims to preserve and protect our natural world and I respect that. So despite my technological restrictions I made the best of the day and had the opportunity to photograph some birds I haven't so far, along with deer and rabbits which was a welcome surprise, and also to learn more about being out in the field. I realise that it would have been exciting to be able to zoom in even closer but for one of my first field trips I am pleased to say that I did get a few decent shots and will be continuing with wildlife and bird photography and hopefully developing my skills further.



In these photographs you can see a Song Thrush perched on a branch and chirping, wild rabbits and a grey heron in flight that was some distance away but I took some shots nonetheless. The top image is of the view that greets you as you arrive at the visitors centre at the reserve, for more information about Pulborough Brooks RSPB nature reserve CLICK HERE.

Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust Day of Photography

Mallard Males Fighting

It seems like a distant memory at the moment but the fact is we did have some gorgeous hot sunny days in the last month, and so I took the opportunity to visit the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust in Arundel. Armed with my digital SLR and long lens I arrived there fairly early and was fortunate enough to have to sun with me all day as I spent around 6 hours photographing more species of wildfowl than I can remember. These are some of the best shots from the day, the results were varied but as you can see I did get several great images also considering it was my first time out in the field so to speak.

Mallard

Mallard Female

At first I set about getting some record shots and probably got a bit carried away photographing every bird in sight, whilst still trying to get good shots, however I really wanted to try and capture some of the birds behaviour and after the initial excitement I knuckled down to business and had to have plenty of patience to wait for the right time to release the shutter. My patience paid off and whilst I did get some great record shots I also got some much more interesting action shots.

White-headed Duck

Wigeon

Snowy Days Wildlife Photography

If you live in the UK you will know that recently we have had our fair share of snow and whilst this has caused some problems it's been great for bird and wildlife photography. I often see Robin's around and this one came pretty close as I had scattered seed on the wall to try and attract them, and with the ground being covered in snow and frozen he took the bait. I recently read that most of our small birds can only last a matter of days when it's been snowing because they can't get at the worms and insects they need to survive, so I made an extra effort to put bird feed out, and on the first day of the snow fall I captured hundreds of images of around a dozen species.

Below is one of the many Grey Squirrels that inhabit these parts, I was able to capture him searching around his log for food before he lept on to he fence and disappeared.