32 News 6

Here in the south east, we had a great autumn in terms of colour. No hard frosts nor strong winds brought an early end to one of my favourite times of year. As well as simply going out into local woodlands and shooting colour I was busy erecting hides in various places for forthcoming photography projects. A feeding station was promptly set-up in a small field adjacent to woodland just in-case we had snow! Snow is so rare these days in kent that any possible chance of obtaining shots of birds in these conditions has to be grasped. Hides were also set up on the North Kent Marshes and at a high-tide roost site.

Snow eventually fell at the end of the year and with just one day in order to get pictures (I was off to spend new year in the Czech Republic) I worked from early morning till late afternoon. Thankfully it seems to have been worth it. To make the most of the changing light I used a dome hide available from Wildlife Watching Supplies which can be easily lifted and transported. The same hide is now on a remote hillside on the Downs, pegged down and surrounded by barbed wire to attempt photography of buzzards.

January was grey, grey, grey. Thank goodness I had work lined up with newspapers and lectures to give otherwise it really would have been a tight and unproductive month! However, February saw much brighter weather so at last I could photograph at the roost and even set up a tower-hide in order to photograph birds on a catkin laden hazel tree.