January's photo marks a return to home ground, both in genre and location. This frosted winter blossom image was taken in Nar Cottage's garden and is of one of our new winter cherry trees "prunus x subhirtella autumnalis, planted to help winter insects, and it certainly seems to be flourishing even in its first year of growth.
Photo Blog
I love observing nature through the changing seasons both in my Norfolk wildlife garden and the surrounding countryside. I blog about wildlife gardening as well as about Norfolk butterflies, wildflowers and other flora and fauna that I come across. Bookmark my Norfolk nature photo blog to keep up to date with my photographic adventures.
The Pianist
Over Christmas I had a little dabble in street and night photography, a little off piste from my usual fare. This busking street pianist caught my eye on my trip to the beautiful Cologne Christmas Market. He wheeled his battered old grand piano on a rickety old trolley over to a shop window and then proceeded to play really rather well.
Frost Ferns
My first photo of 2015 was a reminder that you can discover beauty in the most mundane of places. This is a photo taken one morning of my bedroom skylight that slants southwards just as the sun just started to hit it with a peachy golden glow after a cold and deeply frosty night. I have cropped to tidy the composition and stretched the tonal contrast just a little to convey the depth and contours of the ice crystals but everything else is simply as nature intended....
Rainbows and Ripples
On a boat trip in Tenerife I was fortunate to have my closest ever short-finned pilot whale (globicephala macrorynchus) and bottlenose dolphin encounter on a gloriously sunny December's day. They are so giant and yet so graceful in their element that it is always magical experience for me to gain a fleeting glimpse into their mysterious life that is so very very different from our own.
I had taken a trip once many years ago for only a distant fleeting sighting and that was what I was expecting again this time, so I was quick to grab a backlit fairly distant shot at the first sight of a pilot whale dorsal fin. The notches and marks on a cetacean's dorsal fin are unique to every individual and are used as key identifying marks for scientists researching the pilot whale pods in Tenerife
But I was in luck, the pilot whale pod ventured much closer. As I watched them spout water from their blowholes I saw that the droplets were being refracted into a beautiful rainbow through the sunlight.
At one point one mature pilot whale swam right across the bow of the boat enabling a top down shot through dappled water and light into the sea.
After a last look at the pilot whales we moved on in search of the bottlenose dolphins. Once again we were in luck and watched a small family exhibiting fascinating behaviour. It seemed like the pod was working as an organised team in herding a shoal of fish, much in the way a collie might herd a flock of sheep, curving round in arcs and keeping them tightly packed together in a group. Except of course individual dolphins would then occasionally take it in turns to nip in for a quick snack. There were several calves in the group which may perhaps have been observing this complex team hunting and feeding technique in preparation for adulthood.
Bottlenose dolphin herding a shoal of fish accompanied by a juvenile bottlenose dolphin (above) and baby calf (bottom right).
The group worked closely as a co-ordinated team to keep the shoal of fish close together.
Its not all smiles for the fish, this bottlenose dolphin was putting its razor sharp teeth to good use.
Starry Starry Night
Though we have long nights, its a tad chilly right now to be outside doing star trail shots, so I confess this long exposure night scene was taken from the balcony in a rather warmer Tenerife. Many star trail shots are composite images made up of multiple photos of exactly the same scene blended together in post processing using software in the same kind of way that HDR images are, however it is possible to take a long exposure to create shorter star trails in-camera in just a single image.
It was a blustery evening and not really ideal conditions for taking razor sharp long exposures, but Tenerife is renowned for its clear skies, even being home to a well regarded observatory, so I simply couldn't resist the opportunity. I was particularly fortunate to have the pole star so visible and placed above the cliffs. It was amazing how many more stars became visible even in the 4 second photograph than could be seen with the naked eye.
In the first image you can see the starry sky as we humans see it, taken using a shockingly high ISO of 6400 and a 4 second exposure and then as the camera captured it over a period of 20 minutes (1236 seconds). Both shots used an aperture of f 4.0 and had long exposure noise reduction switched on. One other thing to remember is that it will take as long to store the image on completing the shot as it did to expose it in the first place, so this definitely isn't something to try in a rush.
Lest We Forget...
Coming up to 100 years since the start of World War One, sadly renamed after losing its uniqueness as "The Great War" to end all Wars. So here is one more poppy image, offered humbly to commemorate and with a little prayer that someday we may start to see fewer conflicts in the world...
Hailstorm at Wells
On my dog walk this week I enjoyed a beautiful rainbow, forgetting to check the wind direction, I got caught out by the hail squall it was caused by!
The rainbow colours came out beautifully against the dark inky sky.
The hail was hard and heavy and flocks of seabirds fled across Wells beach to seek shelter from the squall.
The hail was so dense and heavy it's created a mosaic effect in this shot of the beach huts.
October Red Deer Rut
This year's red deer rut photography was limited to a jeep safari at RSPB Minsmere and we kept our distance, but a few contextual black and white shots came out quite nicely. The first two tell the story of the less dominant stags and young bucks, who tend to avoid risking conflict during the rutting season. The third image is of the dominant stag interacting with a romantically minded hind in his harem.
A Fungi Photography Foray
Many people think of October and November as fungi season but various species "flower" all year, and September is a particularly good month to catch fresh early specimens.
This sort of photography is made for smaller bridge and micro four thirds cameras which can offer benefits over DSLRs in positioning, close focusing and depth of field. Remember to take a tripod as it is a real challenge to keep your shutter speed up and ISO acceptable when shooting in dark woodland and shady corners.
Photography in the dog days of summer
One of the things I chatted about on my recent BBC Norfolk radio appearance was the difficult light and the challenges it presents to photographers in high summer. But there is always something to shoot for....
By the time we reach August., though its still very hot and to us the height of summer, in the natural world the days are already drawing in and autumn is just around the corner. Its already getting a little easier to capture soft light in mornings and evenings and if you rise early after a clear night you might even find dew on the ground.
August is a great time to to visit our lowland heaths where the beautiful pink carpet of flowers is just coming into its own and can make a wonderful backdrop for close up photography.
August is a good month to spot late dragonflies as well as second brood and migrant butterflies. Most first generation butterflies are getting very tatty by now and make poor photographic subjects but some species have second broods that metamorphose around now.
The late summer harvest means that hares, who have enjoyed the cover of the growing crops since spring become easier to spot hunkered down in the stubble of harvested fields.
Many birds are already preparing for their Autumn migrations and this month I've immensely enjoyed watching the fledgeling swallows and house martins practice their flight and feeding up around my wildlife pond.
Feeling Summery
Its high summer the bees are buzzing and the butterflies fluttering. Our newly planted wildflower meadow has undergone a transformation into a thing of beauty, enabling me to have a spot of just-for-fun macro photography in my back garden...
Signs of Spring
March is a capricious month and can be very mild or carry a sting in the tale. This year we've been lucky and I captured this shot of one of our sure signs of spring - frogspawn developing into little tadpoles.
Red Kite Soaring
One of my favourite birds is the beautiful and graceful native red kite. I used to love watching one above my garden back in Oxfordshire but I now see them very rarely in Norfolk, so I recently took a short break to Wales to enjoy seeing them in flight at a feeding station. Sometimes known as a pirate of the sky, they are generally carrion scavengers with an important role in the ecosystem and take live prey far less frequently than is often thought.
They are agile flyers and will happily snatch other bird’s pickings and feed in mid air. Not all that long ago they were a species wrongly persecuted by farmers and estates to the brink of extinction but populations in Wales and the Chilterns have recovered thanks to a massive conservation and education effort. While they are far from common and poisoning remains a problem, their numbers appear to be rising in Norfolk as the recovery area population disperses and I hope soon to see these elegant birds of prey gracing our skies more frequently.
Sun mist and rain
January has been an odd mixture of golden sunrises and vivid sunsets with heavy overnight rainstorms, though here in East Anglia we’ve escaped lightly compared to the western half of England that faces the onslaught of the sou’westerly Atlantic storms. Here are three of my photos taken in the month attempting to capture these contrasting elements of winter in Norfolk.
Norfolk Storm Tidal Surge
December 2013 brought unusally mild winter weather to the UK in terms of temperature, but instead of snow the jet stream lashed us with a dangerous and violently destructive combination of high tides, and strong storm force winds that caused a sea surge on the North Norfolk Coast that was more severe than the infamous North Sea Flood of 1953. Thankfully in the intervening years sea defences were improved and held well. This time though the flood water was higher we had good warning that saved many lives despite wreaking havoc at many of the beaches and coastal reserves. The storm event has dramatically re-shaped the coastal environment, permanently changing the profile of the East Anglian coastline.
A visit to Wells beach about a week after the incident brought home to me the full force and elemental power of nature that had been unleashed. The sheer strength of the sea surge breached the two landmark giant dunes as well as sections of the previously dune-sheltered tidal lagoon channel towards Holkham beach, ripping out the wind smoothed sand hills, and the dune grasses that held their forms in place and ploughing thousands of tonnes of sand across the beach plain towards the beach huts and smashing a new vertical sand cliff when it reached the edge of the Corsican pine plantation.
Here is a small gallery showing the scale of the changes to the beach profile. The first shot is pre-storm.
A Rude Awakening
As winter descends, many of our native wildlife species are busy mating and having young, not least our grey seals that are resident all around the British Isle's coastline and have some large colonies on the East cost of England. When I walked out to one such colony a little before the busy grey seal mating and pupping season I came across a lone juvenile common seal. Common seals unlike the greys give birth in summer. The seal was asleep on the beach both aware of and totally unconcerned about my quiet presence. The high autumnal winds were blowing sand across the beach and the breakers were high - it was a bright breezy day. What he didn't notice in his state of utter relaxation was the tide had turned and was now rising and was close to encroaching onto the sand shelf he'd been resting on. I was fortunate enough to capture the moment when the first wave washed over his head, which must have been quite a shock even with his insulating layers. He opened his eyes, then flopped his way up the beach closer to me then resumed his peaceful napping.
A basking juvenlie common seal is engulfed by a foamy white wave breaking on the sandy beach
Source: http://www.kiri-online.co.uk/
Season's Turning
Shafts of sunlight slanting down through autumnal woodland
As summer heat starts to fade into autumn mists and storms, its time to set my macro lens down with a tinge of sadness. Its been a wonderful butterfly year for me with three new first evers to my list, but now the season is turning. The butterflies are fading into warm bright summery memories of warmth with just the hardy commas and admirals feeding up on the flowering ivy preparing to hibernate. But of course the turning leaves augurs in one of the most beautiful landscape and wildlife photography seasons, so it is also time to pick up my landscape lens for the autumn colour and my long lens for the deer rut and the wintering birds all in their bright new winter plumage…
Clouded Yellow Butterfly
Clouded yellow butterfly nectaring on smooth cat's ear
The clouded yellow butterfly, colias croceus, is a wandering migrant butterfly to the southern half of the UK that often arrives from southern Europe in Spring and has a second summer brood that flies in August and September. Historically British winters have been too harsh for the clouded yellow to survive overwinter and establish a year round naturalised presence here, but climate change is in its favour and there have been recent indications that sucessful overwintering may be becomimg possible. This was my first and only sighting of this vibrant custard-yellow lively wandering butterfly and a lovely end to the 2013 butterfly season.
Glorious Summer!
two spot ladybird in pastel meadow grasses
It is amazing how much has changed in a month - both in nature and in my home life...
We finally moved in to our bungalow, the builders have gone and so have most of the cardboard boxes. I am finally starting to relax as the stresses and strains of 18 months of a major renovation project and house selling and buying start to fade. We are loving living in the light and airy space we dreamt of and designed at last.
And the sun has finally come out with avengeance, bringing a flaming July in place of the flaming June of the proverbs. The wheat and barley is turning golden, the rape has gone to seed and everything is becoming parched and bleached from day after day of unrelenting blue skies. As I explore the local trails the meadows are displaying beautiful pastel shades of greens, pinks and beiges with hundreds of ringlet, meadow brown, skipper and gatekeeper butterflies flitting up as you walk through the grasses. They are host to many other mini creatures too and I was pleased to capture this shot of a ladybird, which evokes, for me at least, the feeling of the gloriously hot halcyon days of summer we're experiencing right now.
Summer arrives, sort of
The camera is hardly getting a look in, except on class days, and I am restless in anticipation of our long awaited impending move to Nar Cottage. Butterflies seem few and far between this season in Norfolk, suffering after such a long hard winter of lying snow, but the dragonflies and damselflies seem to be doing well, this is a mating female large red damselfly with f. intermedia markings I spotted on one of my favourite walks.
