Time for a Few Birds

I have been having a lot of fun photographing brown hares this spring and started feeling I had been neglecting the birds a little. This was particularly the case as I could feel spring gathering around me with various migrants coming through and arriving locally. So it was time for a bit of bird time. Also I wanted to get in a little bird practice as I am away to Romania in three weeks where the majority of subjects will be birds. This post is a small collection of different birds photographed recently from a series of often short sessions in various places.

Starting of with a trip down south recently to visit my parents which resulted in a brief stop-off in Bushy Park to break up the journey. The avian soundscape of the London Parks has been transformed by a flourishing population of Ring-necked Parakeets, with their constant sqwarking from the trees. Their vivid green colours certainly add a splash of the exotic to these park lands. This is a species of considerable debate given the suggested competition between these introduced invading species and our endemic tree nesting birds. The light was not great on the day so I was looking for birds in places where I could avoid the sky which either meant low down or with a tree trunk filling the frame.

On one of the ponds in the park there were three Pochard. This is a duck species that has frustratingly evaded by efforts to photograph it and as on this occasion I have only managed a few photographs. This pair of Pochard where in the middle of mating with the female getting half 'drowned' in the process.

Moving closer to home, I have undertaken the occasional early morning or evening session before or after work. My good friend Gerhard created, with quite a lot of sustained effort, an 'out in the wild' feeding station for Linnet. These are quite a flighty species and so it provided a good opportunity to get some photos and watch the birds up close.  His efforts paid off attracting increasing numbers of the birds, which were mainly young birds or females but there were a couple of better coloured males amongst them. They tend to be a slightly overlooked species  which most will associate with loose bounding twittering flocks, but a good coloured male up close is a fine looking bird.

It was nice to see good numbers of Skylark along the local coastal strip. There liquid song dripping down from their high display flights is always a pleasure to the ears.

Always a tricky subject in flight.

This next photograph was a completely unplanned bonus as the bird landed next to me in a bramble patch whilst trying to photograph some warblers. A male Reed bunting in all the finery of its full spring plumage.

Over the last week or so I have finally turned my attentions to the increasing numbers of arriving warblers. These birds really bring an area to life as the once silent reeds, scrub and brambles suddenly takes on a whole new life with the incessant whirling, clicks, and scratchy warbles of various species trying to lay claim to a breeding patch. To appreciate this at its best requires the alarm clock to be set to a very early time which will leave you feeling fuzzy headed with tiredness by the early afternoon. Its worth it though.

A Sedge Warbler establishing its territory over an area of brambles from four different song perches.

Another lover of the security provided by a bramble patch is the Grasshopper Warbler. Now I did intend to avoid these this year but then again I say that every year and was once again drawn in by that mesmerizing insect like song. For me watching these birds broadcast their song is one of the real pleasures at this time of year and no doubt I will find myself drawn to them next April.

2013 Revisited

I do not usually produce a retrospective end of year blog post but thought I would do one for a change. So I have picked a photograph or two from each month, each of which stirs particularly strong memories for me in terms of wildlife encounters.

January - saw me sat of a freezing North Wales beach photographing a flock of around a dozen Snow Bunting.

February - I headed up to the Highlands to try and photograph a Capercaillie. Such a magnificent bird which has left life long memories.

March - A prolonged cold spring and instead of photographing hares amongst the daffodils, they were boxing in deep snow.

April - Calling in to the Forest of Dean to break up a long long drive home from a work meeting found me with a long awaited Garganey in front of the camera for the first time.

May - I tried to restict myself to photograph from each month but failed in May which is always one of the busiest months for a wildlife photographer. A first light start saw a reeling Grasshopper Warbler in front of me. I have many photographs of these birds now but find myself drawn back to them each spring.

A chance encounter with a beautiful vixen.

June - I headed off on my annual overseas trip in June to Romania and the Danube Delta. A beautiful place filled with many wonderful birds. Here is one of the images from the trip of a Squacco heron feeding on a frog.

July - On my return from Romania I had a concerted effort with trying to photograph the extremely wary Green Woodpecker with a moderate degree of success. In this photograph the young bird on the left is watching the adult male excavate yet another ants' nest.

August- I returned to Scotland once again but this time to photograph the Ospreys at Rothiemurchus. An amazing experience just to watch, let alone photograph.

September - Throughout the summer I had been undertaking various sessions with water voles on a Cheshire canal. This was part of a long term project and some very enjoyable and relaxing morning were had by the waterside.

October - A fairly quiet month although I did head out to North Wales to try and photograph a Grey Phalarope. After several hours waiting the bird came close only to be scared away by the sudden appearance of a large dog, resulting in only a couple of photographs being taken.

November - An unexpected encounter with some Redwing feeding on rowan trees against a back cloth of autumn hues

December - Another chance encounter, this time with a beautiful male bullfinch whilst trying to photograph Fieldfare.

Of course December is not over yet and tomorrow will see me heading out to try and capture my first images of Mountain Hare. Hopefully this will produce some more special memories to add to what has been another interesting year in my journey in wildlife photography.

This will be my  last blog post for this year so I will take the moment to wish you all a Happy, Healthy and wildlife filled 2014.

A Weakness for Grasshopper Warbler

Wildlife photography requires a certain amount of self-discipline, such as getting up at an unearthly hour to an alarm call when your head and body would rather stay in the comfort of your bed beneath the duvet. You need to set yourself goals and concentrate on particular species to which you dedicate your time and not become distracted. I nearly always set out from the house with a definite plan, on those days when you become distracted and decide to head elsewhere are usually when you come back with few or any photos at all.

At the start of this spring I told myself categorically that I was going to ignore Grasshopper Warbler (locally known as 'Groppers') given that I already have so many images of them. So I set out a couple of weeks back looking for some Blackcap not realising with this year's 'broken spring', which has played havoc with my mental calender, that the main influx of this migrant Sylvia warbler was yet to occur. As I looked around looking and listening for Blackcap I heard that all to familiar rapid ticking song of a Grasshopper warbler from a bramble patch. The warbler was keeping low out of the gusty wind and I just got a momentary glimpse of a very yellow looking bird. Many of you may not actually realise that Groppers come in two colour morphs with both brown and yellow variants. This was certainly the most yellow coloured one I had ever seen.

That brief sighting and sound of that reeling song was all it took for my weakness for Grasshopper warblers to kick in. When I got home I found myself suddenly checking the forecast looking for good Gropper weather! There was no turning back now, as I became fully consumed by the G-fever. The forecast showed that the relentless stiff cold wind was easing off in three days time, the temperature rising and some dawn sun was even predicted. It looked ideal.

Still conditions are important for Grasshopper warbler photography as the birds will only show themselves at the top of their bramble patches in light winds. Stronger winds see them content to sing from deep cover.  The other important factor is time of day as you need to be in position as the sun is just emerging or disappearing over the horizon. I have often seen photographer arriving as I am leaving who enquire if I have seen any Groppers, by which time the early morning performance is over. The window to photograph them is also very brief usually only a week or two, after they arrive while the birds establish territories and pair up for breeding. If you combine all these factors then they are relatively easy to see or photograph.

So the alarm was set for early o'clock to allow me to get ready and drive to be at the site just as the red glow of a new day started to tint the sky. Before the sun broke the horizon I could hear a few short bursts of the insect like warble from the brambles, the bird was warming up for its morning performance. As the first rays appeared up came the same very yellow bird, in the same place I had seen it a few days early, to broadcast its song.

This is the bird on its first appearance before the sunlight flooded across the bramble patch.

I thought for a change I would post a head crop of the above photo. I would like to point out that any image you see of a small bird's head in close up is always a large crop of the original unless the photographer as gone to extreme lengths with extenders and extension tubes attached to the lens. The reasons for showing this is are two fold. Firstly you lose a lot of detail when you reduce an image in size and to low res to post on the Internet. I always wished you could see the images that I do where you can count individual feather filaments, assuming you wanted to. Secondly I want you to look in to the eye where you can see the sun just  emerging above the horizon.

The first light of a sunny day is always a photographer;s best friend and bathes your subject in beautiful soft warm light. The performance by this Grasshopper Warbler from a photography point of view was outstanding as the bird would often pick the highest bramble arch in the low clump to perform. This allowed, with a bit of slow manoeuvring from me to achieve clean backgrounds to the photos which is always welcome for a bird that shows such an affinity for deep cover. It is always interesting when you obtain a series of images of the same bird over the period of the sun rising how much the changing colour of light affects the look of the bird.

So yes I am weak willed when it comes to these enigmatic little birds and managed to completely ignored my own advice to give them a wide berth this year, although in many ways I am glad I did :). Maybe next year I will be able to ignore them.....maybe.

The Joy of 'Groppers'

I seem to have a strange affinity with the Grasshopper Warbler which has allowed me over the last few years to build a good library of images. It strange as a bird photographer how you have great success with some species and seem to completely fail with others. Every bird photographer has a few 'bogey birds' for which they struggle to get images. For example, Dottrel that are relatively easy to photograph due to their very confiding nature I have never managed yet to put in front of the lens.

This is a highly skulking bird that loves to keep deep within low vegetation and a species which many have only heard but not seen. I think the key to my numerous prolonged encounters with these birds has been mainly due to timing. The window for photography is a narrow one and only seems to last two or three weeks from when the birds first arrive back from Africa and  until they have secured a mate for the breeding season. During this brief time the birds, that will have taken up residence in low clumps of brambles and scrub will frequently move up to the highest perch in the early morning to burst into their unusual insect like song allowing great opportunities for the photographer.

As insect grasshoppers are not usually singing at the time when these warblers are, if you hear the characteristic fast clicking sound in the mid-spring its a good chance it is one of these birds.

Homing in on the birds' locations can sometimes be difficult as during the song they rotate their heard to broadcast the sound giving it ventriloquist properties with it seemingly coming from somewhere else. It can be heard from a surprising long distance, as long as you and not too old to have had your high frequency hearing dulled. I think the song has some sort of hypnotic influence on me, as despite telling myself to concentrated on photographing other species, each time I hear it I find myself drawn in towards the bird. One thing I do know that is a hour or so in early morning light at close quarters to a 'Gropper', as they are known locally, is an unforgettable wildlife encounter.

Once a singing Grasshopper Warbler is located their photography is relatively straight forward as they are fairly unconcerned by your presence (as long as you do not move) and it is quite predictable where they are going to sing from. As with many warblers they have preferred song perches. Its really just a question of having some patience and waiting for the bird to occasionally pop up from the brambles on to one of its perches and start its 'reeling' song.

Given that I have so many Grasshopper Warbler images now, I have told myself that in future years I will do my best to ignore them and look for other species. Whether I will be able to stick to this remains to be seen and no doubt in future years on hearing the song I will be drawn back in gripped by 'Gropper' fever once again.