It only takes me around 50 minutes drive to get into prime red grouse habitat in the Yorkshire Dales or North Yorkshire Moors, so I often get up there when the birds are at their best and calling. Cruising the small roads that criss-cross the open moorland will eventually bring you into contact with one of these bold game birds standing at the side of the road. Here, shooting through dead grasses has provided a nice diffuse foreground to the picture while the shallow DOF 0f the 500mm has provided separation from the background.

I really am trying to re-write this website but life is so busy at the moment with the commercial, studio and wedding work that all my efforts are focused on that side of the business. However, I’m picking away at this site and trying to add a bit of new content and while going through my database looking for images for the gallery, I came across some great bustard images I did in Spain 7 or 8 years ago. These were shot from a hide in the heart of the Spanish steppe south of Trujillio and its one of those enigmatic species I never thought I’d get to do. At one point I had up to 21 male great bustards outside the hide displaying.  I may post a few more shortly but here’s one shot of a male bird looking rather aluf. This is taken with a Nikon D2H – state of the art camera back then with a whopping 4 mega pixel sensor! What a bird! Well worth the 14 hours a day in the hide :¬)