Viewing entries tagged
Winter

Snow Days

I’m lucky to have access to Ian Howells Woodland Bird Hide. It’s a nice setup of bird feeders that’s not far from home. I offer to help him fill the feeders, which has proven to be quite a responsibility for him during winter as they need filling at-least 3 times a day.! It’s always worth having a good bird feeder setup to return to on snow days as everything just looks better in the snow. Because of the white bright snow, light is reflected to the underparts of the birds giving you better exposure possibilities in the camera. I was particularly happy with the Great Spotted Woodpecker images as I’ve been after a clean show of the male for a while. Watching him flumping around in the snow was quite amusing.

Before you get too excited, this is an old image at Newport Road Cardiff in January 2017. The reason I’m posting this image as it may just happen for us again this year with the closest sightings so far being Crickhowell and Chepstow. There certainly seems to be the odd small flock in Wales and fingers crossed I’ll get the opportunity again as they are stunning Birds and very photogenic.

Autumn/Winter Projects

This Autumn/winter I have a few target species that I'd like to get photographs of and also record the sound of. Other than the typical winter Robin singing, there are a few spectacles that bring incredible sound opportunities: 1 of which is the Starling Murmuration. That spectacle isn't just incredible to watch but it's incredible to listen to! You can hear the movement of the flock as they swoop together as one unit and when they land, thousands of Starlings gather in a very small area and that is well worth listening to as they communicate with each other in complete darkness!. 

My photography list is reasonably short this winter but that means I can be more productive with my time. 1 species on that list isn't actually a bird, but a Red Squirrel!. I've never seen one before so just seeing them will make my winter better but I have already arranged a trip out with a few other professional photographers NEXT WEEK! (Weather permitting) so hopefully you'll see some half decent shots of Red Squirrels here in a couple weeks time.