Entries Tagged ‘Peak District’:

An early start to photography the Red Grouse this week turned into a lovely close encounter with a family of these iconic moorland birds.  I begin my ascent in the dark, where your visibility is lessened in the absence of any natural light, as the sun hadn’t risen above the horizon yet. Having lost your clear vision heightens your other senses, your ears become better at hearing, more in tune as I call it with the environment, your sense of smell increases, as every step you take is carefully placed. You pick out a prominent feature in the direction you are travelling and focus to the left or right of that subject and that’s how you see and navigate yourself in the dark.

Reaching the plateau the ascent levels out a little, it is a welcome sight and what greets you is miles, upon miles of rocky outcrops littering the moorland.  Its home to specialized animals that have evolved and adapted to living in this hostile environment.  They live through the most testing weather conditions that Mother Nature can through at them.  On this day though the sun was rising over the valley below, slowly warming and filling the place with light. With that nature awakens, birds begin to call, distance calls, close calls echo around the place and for me it is truly the best time of the day as everything begins to wake up around you.

It’s one of the best times to photograph wildlife as the light is softer, less harsh and adds so much to an image. The wildlife can be more trusting at this time of day and you must never betray that trust in order to get an image. If you use your fieldcraft skills, watch and listen and respect the subject, they will settle once that trust is gained. You then can carry on always mindful of your advance and approach and the welfare of the subject. If the subject shows signs of distress, is defending their territory at your presence then you’ve gone to far.

Once the sun had come up, the colours of the moorland popped out, turning a black and white landscape into a colourful one, blooming with colours all warmed by the sun.  I saw a few Grouse in the distance, their bubbling call so unique within the bird world. In the distance I saw a lone Mountain Hare, feeding in their brown summer coats. With the onset of winter these hares change to their white winter coats, which makes them almost invisible within this landscape. This is very important as there are many raptors that patrol these areas, so they have perfectly adapted to their habitat with the changing seasons and different weather, how wonderful nature is.

Between myself and the hare there was open ground, so I used the lay of the land to advance. The wind was in my favour, blowing away any slight noise as I placed my feet down on the ground, at the same time blowing my scent away.  Hares have an amazing sense of smell and hearing so the pursuit of such animals is fruitless if your fieldcraft is poor and you don’t use what’s around you to your own advantage here in the Peak District.

Once I was happy, I managed to see two, as the other was hugging the ground feeding, I let a few shots off and they stood up on their hind legs to see. I stopped everything, turned myself into a low-lying bush, and this image below was that first contact I had with these two hares. They had heard my camera noise but just couldn’t make out where it was from, I took a few more slow, single shots and they settled and carried on feeding. While this was going on I could hear the distinctive calls of Red Grouse in the distance so I said goodbye to the Mountain Hare and advanced towards the calls.

I always try to move slowly, all the time watching and listening as I always say that nature will let you know what’s around you, she can also be your first indication that something is wrong as alarm calls can ring out at any time, letting other animals know there is danger around, more so you’ve been spotted, if so stop, go to ground and wait. I did that here behind this set of rocks when this Red Grouse came from nowhere. I watched, perfectly still, hoping my slight movement hadn’t disturbed this Grouse as I was really close.

I captured the bird yawning, it made no sound what so ever, unlike their call.  Afterwards the grouse came from the protection of the rocks and picked away at the heather shoots. The light was amazing and lit up the colours of these beautiful birds really well, the background was the valley below, some 600m beneath me. With such close encounters involving a wild animal going about its life you feel your heart rate greatly increase, you go into auto mode, trusting the settings and routine you’ve practised many times before along with the element of luck on your side.

I stayed put among these large rocks and within no time a whole family of Red Grouse came out from cover. Mum, Dad, and several excitable youngsters.  Mum and Dad were constantly on guard, watching for any sign of predators, then they’d disappear back to the safety of the stones and rocks.

I had a privileged ten minutes watching this family, the youngsters all happy to be out from cover, their tireless energy on show, up and down on these rocks, flapping and exercising their wings building strength and confidence. It was really funny to watch at the same time very enduring to witness.  They all started to walk off, coming down from the high vantage points of the rocks, they slowly disappeared from view and that was the last I saw of that family.

A beautiful encounter among this stunning landscape, where you can see no one the whole time you are there, giving you a sense of true wilderness, something I love to be among, photographing the beautiful and stunning wildlife.  Sometimes that beauty is hard for me to put into words.  I hope this recent slideshow of a few beautiful moments I captured in the wild, put together and arranged alongside the tempo of this music will help.

Over the last few days I have been really busy with One to Ones/Workshops and on all of them the weather and the conditions just came together perfectly and the sunrise was breathtaking with the wildlife showing up also making for an all round great few days for my clients. I guess you could say that some days you just get lucky.  Setting off for the higher peaks within the Peak District National Park, Derbyshire in total darkness gives a whole different feel to the experience as losing part of one of your major senses heightens the others you have. 

Making judgments with a narrow field of vision really makes you come alive, carefully placing your feet and focusing using the light from the moon, aided with the head touch that illuminated our path, we watched the frosty morning chill begin to warm with the upcoming spectacular sunrise.  Reaching the summit at nearly 2000 feet as the sun breaks the horizon, bathing the whole place in a warm, orange glaze.  Making you feel as though you are standing on top of the world with the mist and clouds beneath you sheltering the population from this hidden world you must work at to see.

My client Matthew from Wales wanted to see the Red Grouse in its natural habitat and I have several different sites with different levels of approach. The route we chose meant the ascent was in the dark using the moons light to illuminate our path alongside our head torches, carefully making our way to the summit as the sun came up. In all the years I have been visiting the Peak District I have rarely witnessed such a beautiful morning, the crunch of the morning frost under foot, the air chilled from the over night frost and the Red Grouse were everywhere feeding on the tender shoots the sun was thawing out. Their constant ‘bubbling’ calls echoing down the valley with the morning mist adding great drama.

As we made our way through this amazing landscape of Heath/Moorland the colours of the place were stunning and apart from the odd walker we had the whole place to ourselves which left a silence you’d only know if you find somewhere remote within nature and watch the world go by. I went through fieldcraft techniques which for me is a key competency in wildlife photography.  If you are to get close to a wild animal you need to watch and look for clues, behaviour, listen for calls, which vary in different pitch to suite the subjects mood, progressively getting higher in pitch once they see something they perceive as a threat. Breaking a animals virtual horizon is the key-  shape, shine, silhouette, you can look like a bush but approach without respecting the forementioned and off they go.

Red Grouse are very comical and display many different behaviours you rarely see from a distance when passing them on the narrow walkways carved into the landscape from years of walkers pounding these routes through this breathtaking landscapes.

The heaths and moors of the Peak District are an eerie exposure of peat covered moorland sitting about 600m (2000 ft) above sea level. Large wind carved eroded rocks sit among vast plateaus and rock formations supporting a healthy population of these amazingly hardy Red Grouse.  These iconic moorland birds make their home on these moors and are reliant on their camouflaged plumage to blend in to this habitat, where the only time you know they are around is when you stumble upon them when you are walking as they explode from the ground, taking flight with a unforgettable distress call.

I take everything with me on these One To One/Workshop days, packed lunches, large flask, cold drinks, first aid, in fact everything bar the kitchen sink is placed on my back in preparation for any event mother nature should throw at us in these changeable environments..

One of my favourite images from the two days with Matthew was this lone male Red Grouse below, perched on this prominent rock, his call echoing down into the valley beneath him, a truly beautiful picture to see and one I was privileged to capture with a wide angle, as I had crawled forward for some time to get closer, then all of a sudden he popped up onto this rock and began singing. 

A real mixture of luck, fieldcraft and timing coming together in one of those rare moments you are afforded within wildlife photography from time to time. We had some other lovely encounters with these beautiful birds I am very fond of, so a big thank you Matthew and I’ll see you in a few weeks on my Winter Waders  workshop at Norfolk. I have many One To Ones running throughout the Winter months now on the lead up to next years Spring/Summer time just have a look on my website under Workshops then click on One To One and take a look or send me an email should you wish me to meet you at a place of your choosing.

I will be presenting 3 x45 minute Wildlife Photography workshops at this years North West Birding Watching Fair at WWT Martin Mere .  Whatever the weather this Festival is an enjoyable and informative day out.  I will be going through simple techniques that I use, showing you how to improve your own photography accompanied with a few slide shows and a brief practical session going through anything you wish.  So if you are free on the Sunday please pop by to say hello many thanks.

Spent a lovely day yesterday on a One To One with Gary Copeland,Derbyshire in the Peak District looking for Red Grouse,after a slight walk to one of 3 places I visit regularly we got into place and waited for this very shy bird to show up.The heaths and moors of the peak district are an eerie exposure of peat covered moorland sitting about 600m (2000 ft) above sea level. Large wind carved eroded rocks sit among vast plateaus and rock formations supporting a healthy population of Red Grouse. These iconic moorland birds make their home on these moors and are reliant on their camouflaged plumage to blend in to this habitat.The image below shows where we were and gives you an ideal of this habitat.

The image above is of the hard to capture/see female who looked in stunning condition,perched on these large rocks that litter this beautiful landscape, the weather was good to us in the morning but in the afternoon the weather changed and at 570m ( Altitude-meter in my watch) above sea level you get a real sense of the environment  as you look to the sky and see the changing weather approaching.Neverless Gary and myself had a great day and I was pleased  for gary as he managed some lovely images and learned alot about the Grouse,approach,what to look for etc.

I managed to capture a male Red Grouse up on a stone wall walking up and down, like something of the famous ‘Red Grouse Whisky’ advert where he is seen posing and performing,very funny to watch,seen below in this image

The Red Grouse is one of those beautiful birds that live a quiet and shy life,a very jumpy bird I have found over time and the secret is just simply to get into place with as little disturbance to the bird as possible and wearing camouflage clothing,make sure the wind is blowing towards you as this will take your scent away and just wait for them to show up,they often fly around alot and take some time to settle.I run Red Grouse In The Peaks workshops, where throughout the year I have certain dates where I take up to four people to the best site at that time of year or like Gary I can do a One To One at one of these site’s also. It’s all designed to get the best images for the client as I can and a better understanding of your chosen subject using my proven fieldcraft techniques and other simply tips I teach and showing people the beauty of nature.

And the male turned up just before we left and posed for us and I managed this portrait of this beautiful bird, a great day was had by all,thank you for your company Gary and a Merry Christmas.