Yorkshire wildlife & landscape photographer

Songbird photography at Old Moor RSPB

March 18, 2017

Songbird photography

A couple of hours of songbird photography at Old Moor RSPB reserve near Barnsley paid dividends today resulting in more than a handful of good images. The most common bird was bullfinhc and reed bunting along with the usual suspects such as blue tit, great tit, goldfinch, blackbird and chaffinch, but we had a few visits from a male brambling and the one bird I was hoping for – yellowhammer. Yellowhammer is a bird I’ve never really photographed well, so it was nice to get some images in the bag today of both male and female both on perches and on the ground. We used a variety of flowering trees for our props – blackthorn, pussy willow and cherry blossom and of these, I think I liked the willow best. Here are just a few images from today’s songbird phorography session.

songbird phortography at Old Moor RSPB bullfinch female Yorkshire wildlife photographer greenfinches drinking Yellowhammer male Yorkshire

by John

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Coltsfoot heralds spring.

March 12, 2017

As ever, the yellow headfs of the coltsfoot heralds spring and today was no exception along the old railway tracks that criss-cross the fields around our village. Not only was coltsfoot the herald of spring but also several newly arrived chiffchaff, lapwings displaying in the ploughed fields and, of course, the first of the blackthorn flowers breaking out. Some of the wild bird cherries were in full blossom and looked fantastic lining the old railway cuttings. The air was full of birdsong as chaffinches belted out their song along with robins and dunnocks. With sand martins already on the local reservoir, the earliest ever spring record for us, it feels well and truly as if spring is here. Coltsfoot and bird cherry are featured here.

by John

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Yorkshire East Coast Bird Photography

March 11, 2017

Yorkshire east coast bird photography

The spring sunshine lured me out for some Yorkshire east coast bird photography today, although the sun was a bit later in showing than I had hoped for. The day began with a visit to the wintering Mediterranean gulls which I’d hoped would be in full summer plumage by now but they were not quite there. One of the adults had an almost full black head but was less photogenic due to the amount of rings on the legs including a large, red Darvic ring. There was also a first-winter Med gull there which was nice to see and easy enough to pick out from the first-winter black-headed gulls by the dark eye smudge and the much heavier beak. As the weather was not what had been forecast, I decided to move on to the harbour to see if there were any rarities around. The harbour turned out to be fairly quite, with just a long staying great northern diver showing briefly, so straight on to see the pergrines on the cliffs below Scarborough castle but not before photographing the obliging house sparrows amongst the fishing pots. Sure enough, the peregrines were showing well, though the steep shooting angle made photography difficult, and I didn’t fair much better on the long staying black redstart on Marine Drive which I saw but didn’t photograph.

Deciding I ought to check out the very long staying and seemingly obliging eastern black redstart that has overwintered on Skinningrove beach, I headed north to Whitby and beyond to Cleveland to the quiet fishing harbour of Skinningrove. Sure enough, the redstart was there amongst the rocks on the beach and he was not alone; a superb pair of stonechats were there and were equally obliging. The rocks were soon in the shade of a nearby hill but the real barrier to photgraphing the redstart was an aggressive robin which was also inhabiting the rocks and was not happy with other birds on his patch. Back on the sunny side of the harbour, a different pair of stonechats put in an appearance as well as a pair of wrens but the rock pipits were the star bird here. A great day out with a great number of images under the belt and I’m still sorting them out but here are a few for starters.

by John

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winter feeding station bird photography

February 11, 2017

Today was the first time I’ve used the Nikkor 200-500mm for some winter feeding station bird photography. The ability to zoom is a real boon when working from a hide like this, especially with a 1.4x extender attached. I’ve always used a Nikon 500mm f/4 lens for much of my bird photography but the fixed focal length can be a bit resrictive when a range of species drops by to feed. Being able to pull back if a pheasant strolls by or zoom in tight if something small like a long-tailed tit drops in is superb and can be the difference between getting the shot or missing it. Obviously there are downsides to using the 200-500mm over the 500mm f/4 – autofocus perfomance is slower and, of course, I miss the much shallower depth of field I can achieve with the 500mm. However, the honeymoon is still on for me and I love the lens a lot – it is very sharp and the AF is not so sluggish that it become a problem. Given the low light I was shooting in, it was pretty impressive. Here is a selection of the birds I captured during the shoot.

by John

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Red Grouse photography on the Moors

February 11, 2017

Red grouse photography on the moors

After finishing a commercial job in Pately Bridge, I decided to drive home across the moorland from Pately Bridge to Ripon in order to photograph red grouse. I had packed the D500 and 200-500mm Nikkor as I’d a good idea that I might take this route home, so with the widlife camera combo on the passenger seat, I set off in search of grouse. It didn’t take long! Just after leaving the last coupl of house and heading out onto the moors, I came across a male red grouse sitting on a dry stone wall. As is often the case, he was uterly fearless and sat there as I manvered the car backwards and forwards trying to get an angle. Unfortunately, I was looking up and it was a bland sky behind him but I managed plenty of shots.

Just further along the road I came across a couple of males displaying in front of a female and one kindly stood on a rock for his portrait. In my rush to photograph him, I didn’t check my exposure and the camera was in manual exposure after photographing the guy on the wall. I blasted off a sequence of him on the rock in full display, and this lasted just a few seconds. I reviewed my images only to dioscover I was roughly 4 stops under exposed! After much cursing I left the images on the card and hoped that the lossless ISO of the D500 would aloow me to pull the image back through and fortunatley it did! A bit grainy but at least I salvaged the shot.

I ended the shoot with a male grouse on a standing stone against a sunset sky.

by John

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