Yorkshire wildlife photographer | West Yorkshire landscape and nature photographer | wildlife photography Yorkshire

Yorkshire bird photographer: Willow warbler

The good thing about being a Yorkshire bird photographer just now is that there are a lot of migrants piling in just now with the warm spring weather and all of them are desperate to set up a territory and find a mate. This is the perfect time to have a go at photographing them while they are brazen and bold and really out to show off. Once they’ve successfully found a mate, the birds are much less likely to sing and display. So, with this in mind, I took a well earned break from editing my commercial photographic shoots and headed out with a 500mm and a bit of scrim. I spent a couple of hours in the field but the bird that performed best for me was this beautiful male willow warbler. He sang and displayed like I’ve never seen before and was wafting his wings and drooping his tail and getting really feisty with a male chiffchaff that kept straying into his patch. The sunlight was harsh and the background cluttered, but I got a few shots. I was gutted to find that just as I stalked close enough to him, he displayed in a willow bush (as his name would suggest!) but with a small branch running just in front of him or on a hideous piece of willow that had been twisted and broken from the path edge by dog walkers! :¬\