winter
Catkins
I didn’t expect much during a late afternoon stroll through local woodland. I had left it quite late but just needed to get away from the computer and stretch my legs. I came across a low, drooping hazel branch full of catkins and looked at possible images. They seem to appear earlier and earlier as each year passes. In the past I had photographed them against a blue sky and shedding their pollen using flash and with the sun rapidly setting I looked at a possible silhouette. I reached for the 105mm micro and hand-held, moved around the catkins until I was satisfied with the composition. The D2x was them mounted onto a tripod and the scene composed. Focus was critical since I needed to use a very wide aperture of f2.8 or f4 in order to achieve the effect I was after. This in turn resulted in a relatively fast shutter speed of 1/100th sec at iso 100 which helped as there was a slight breeze.
I always enjoy the feeling of coming home with something, even just a single image, that I know is a little different from the norm on days when I don’t expecting anything at all.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
Maybe it’s because it very rarely happens these days or perhaps because it offers new challenges for a wildlife photographer, but am I the only photographer out there that fills up with excitement and anticipation when it snows?! I just love it, even though as a country we are particularly useless at dealing with the white stuff when it comes to a stand-still. I am amazed, given the warning, that hardly any gritting took place on so many major roads where I live and even more so, the speeding idiots who think their car will stop even on black ice! I own a 4WD and it has proven it’s worth over the last few days, but that hasn’t stopped several near misses with those driving way too fast. I’ve driven for many years along local country roads and always expect the unexpected so whilst driving gingerly at under 10 mph to my feeding station several miles away, I wasn’t at all surprised to come face to face with a van hurtling towards me then locking its brakes and as a result veering here and there. It stopped just a few metres away where my expert use of international sign language came into use!
So late Friday morning I headed to my feeding station in the hope of obtaining images of birds in the snow. They were coming in thick and fast, so much so that there was hardly sufficient time to frame the image. Eventually I managed to get a few half decent ones, including this splendid goldfinch. You can see the effect of the snow on the ground, acting like a giant reflector.
Goldfinch. Nikon D300, 300mm f2.8, manfrotto 055 with gitzo head, dome hide.
Great-spotted woodpecker
My favourite image however is this one of a robin perched on a fence post. It was pure chance and to me sums up the English countryside in winter, much more so than close-up’s. Perhaps one day it’ll get used as a Christmas card!
It never lasts long enough though and the day after, most of the snow on the trees had disappeared. A few weeks of snowy weather would allow me to relax a little and think of interesting images rather than trying to get as much as possible within 2 or 3 days and the way the climate is changing I guess there is less and less chance of prolonged severe weather. What a shame.
Heading home at sunset.
Birds at last!
In my previous post I mentioned how slow the birds were in coming to the feeding station I had prepared for the last 6 weeks. This was obviously due to the mild weather and there being plenty of food in the woods and fields to satisfy them. But with this sudden spout of cold weather they are now coming in in droves! Species so far as follows though not all photographed…blue tit, great tit, coal tit, marsh tit (pretty sure not willow), chaffinch, goldfinch (yes!) robin and great-spotted woodpecker.
Tuesday was my first attempt. I positioned the two feeders (one with nuts the other with niger seed) about 2m away from what I think is a blackthorn bush (sorry, I’m not totally sure…happy to hear from someone to put me right) and photographed them as they perched before going to the feeders. I often go for this way of working as opposed to placing perches for them to alight on since you get a variety of poses in one sitting. It also looks more natural I think since that is how we more often than not view them…flitting in and out and amongst hedges and trees. There are times however when I will strategically place perches particularly if I am after a clean background. It was a beautiful day and although the p ictures certainly looked punchy and colourful, the light just seemed too harsh and the images lacked ‘soul’.
blue tit
I decided therefore to use a technique I’ve employed in the past when photographing plants which is to shoot either end of the day and while the subject is in shade the background is illuminated by the early morning/late afternoon sunlight. The effect is unusual but I have to say I like it quite a lot. You need to use a wide aperture to really throw the background out of focus and there is just a small window of opportunity before the light on the background becomes too harsh. I arrived shortly after sunrise and once settled the birds began to perch and feed giving me just enough time before the sun illuminated the bush.
I also went this afternoon and obtained more images, yes even more blue tits! But the highlight was at around 3 o clock a common buzzard flew within 4m of the hide and perched in an oak tree just feet above me. It was so close that as it flew towards me I thought at one point it was going to join me in the hide!
Seal Circus
I have only been to this location once, in 1992. Those of you that are familiar with seal photography will know where Iam talking about and for those of you that don’t, all I will say is that it is on the Lincolnshire coast. Please read on to find out why I do not give it’s exact whereabouts. Back then, it was hardly known of and indeed all I wanted to do as a 22 year old was photograph grey seals that autumn. I understood through popping into my local library (this was, after all before the days of the web) that they come ashore from October to February to breed and give birth along the Norfolk and Lincolnshire coast and further. So, I first wrote a letter that summer to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust who gave me the address of the warden who I also then wrote to. All this communication by ‘snail-mail’ took several weeks but in the end I was given details of where I should be able to find them.
I was advised by the warden to only go there at the weekend, for a very good reason. I drove up on the Friday with my dad, booked into a B&B then went to the local pub for lunch. Whilst at the pub we chatted to locals who gave us directions as to where the best spot is for seeing them so later that afternoon we parked the car where they suggested and walked along the dunes where lo and behold there they were! What a sight I thought. All the letter writing and driving had finally paid off. I remember taking quite a few shots but at the same time being mindful that I only had a certain amount of film with me. Seems funny looking back on it in this digital age that you had to consider things like that.
The following dawn we both walked across the beach, which took around half an hour to where the main colony was. The early mist cleared and I began shooting with seals all around. But, the images I was really after were of the seals swimming, perhaps with their heads bobbing in the water, typical of this species. But the North Sea didn’t play ball. It was very rough and they were concealed most of the time by the waves. In my concentration I forgot about the waves and all of a sudden my wellington’s were filled with ice cold sea water. Not very pleasant I can tell you! My dad however, in typical fashion, came prepared with spare socks and bags which I slipped my feet into and then back into the wellies. Arh, warm and dry again. On the Sunday however a kind of estuary occurred between the sea and main beach which the seals seemed to be enjoying. It was like a mill pond. I set up the camera on the tripod and just sat there while cows and bulls swam close by, sometimes so close they filled the frame too much. I looked behind me to see my dad with two pups that had come up to him. Looking back I wish I’d taken a photo of that moment but was too focused on the job in hand. How many others were there to share this? Three at the most. Colleagues tell me it’s a very different matter these days. Donna Nook is a ‘must’ for nature photographers fuelling their need to photograph these animals and for pro’s to further saturate the market with identical looking images. On Alamy alone there are 2746 images if you type in the location and my own agent has 186 images and I’m sure they have a lot more taken here which the author has omitted from the caption. Many thousands now go there and every year there seems to be stories about irresponsible behaviour by photographers, getting too close and stressing the animals.
Nikon F4, 500mm f4P, Kodachrome 64.
I don’t think there were many photographers that knew of that site at the time as within months of me submitting the images to my then agent Planet Earth Pictures they were were being used in newspapers, calendars and magazines and even Getty took a few. Certainly images of them were few and far between and unlike others I didn’t immediately start doing workshops there to make a few quid, one of the main reasons I believe for the surge, even before internet forums. I’m personally very reluctant to give away subject locations these days of those areas that may attract large numbers of photographers and indeed only do so to a few like-minded friends and colleagues. This isn’t because I’m worried that they may take similar or better images and put them in the market place in competition with me but that ultimately the subject may become stressed by the sheer number of others in that vicinity. And anyway, surely by doing your own homework you will benefit from producing your own set of fresh images and the personal satisfaction that comes from doing so.
Last year I worked on a site for several weeks photographing a short-eared owl from my car. Using a hide wasn’t an option as it hunted in a field adjacent to a road. I would sit there patiently most afternoons observing and photographing until one afternoon I turned up and there were at least 8 photographers semi-blocking the road with their cars, standing next to the field, cameras on tripods, noisily chatting to one another. The owl did appear but of course headed for the far end of the field and eventually crossed to another some distance away. A perfect example of inconsiderate behaviour by those that were acting as though they were on an outing, comparing lenses and tripods than actually taking into account the well-being of the bird and observing from a discreet distance, inside their vehicles.
I have to say that I’m reluctant to go back to the same seal colony as I fear it will tarnish the perfect memory of spending two whole days with the seals and my dad on an almost empty beach. Instead, I’m looking for a fresh venue and I think I may have just found one.
Brents
Although north Kent in autumn and winter has an influx of waders and wildfowl, geese, to a certain degree don’t tend to come this far down in the kind of huge numbers you can experience in Norfolk. So every year I look forward to the arrival of the brent geese with its far carrying call of the north. Brent geese are the most northerly breeding geese in the world and every autumn travel over 2,500 miles from their tundra breeding grounds in Siberia. Their route follows the coastline of northern Russia, through the White Sea and Baltic Sea and along the North Sea coast and the English Channel. That’s quite a trip for the smallest goose to visit our shores!
There are two races of brent goose. The dark-bellied form as pictured here, which winters in western Europe, with over half the population in southern England and the pale-bellied race. The latter breed in Greenland, Svalbard and Canada and winter in Denmark, north-east England, Northern Ireland and the Atlantic coast of the U.S. from Maine to Georgia.
Brent Geese (dark-bellied form) in flight.
Brent Goose (dark-bellied form) landing to feed.
Brent Geese (dark-bellied form) feeding on mud-flats.
Brent Goose (dark-bellied form) in flight.
Brent Geese (dark-bellied form) flying over mud-flats.
Over the years I have ammased quite a number of images of this species but I’m unsure I will ever truly be able to do this bird the justice it so deserves, but I’ll have fun trying, that’s for sure. And who knows, perhaps I’ll even get to see them at their breeding grounds one day.
About Robert Canis
Robert Canis is a professional photographer specialising in the natural world.
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