Entries Tagged ‘Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust Martin Mere’:

Winter announced its arrival recently bringing to an end one of the warmest autumns since records began with gales, icy winds and snow in parts of the UK. While the seasons change from autumn into winter there seems to have been an invasion of Short-eared Owls to various areas around the UK. These birds come down from the moorland and higher ground during our winter months to spend their time at sea level before departing back to the higher breeding grounds come February and March. The numbers of this most striking of owls has been up on last years and at this rate looks set to match the brilliant numbers of 2009.

Many of these birds are being seen across the whole country at present indicating a fantastic year for their main food source of voles and small rodents. One of the many things that is good about these beautiful birds is that they hunt in mainly daylight, particularly from mid-afternoon onwards and they can stay in an area through the winter months providing the voles and other small rodents in which they feed mainly on remain at a good level.

This year has been a bumper year for voles with the warming temperatures making it ideal conditions for these small mammals to breed. Birds are coming from the continent also to take advantage of the plentiful food source experts have recorded. Over the last couple of weeks I have visited several places of which I have photographed these owls in the past and as mentioned 2009 for me was one of the best years, but this year may just beat that as numbers and sightings continue to rise each week.

Bright yellow eyes that look at first glance as though they are frowning if they look at your directly.  With their pale faces acting to enhance their most striking of features, those bright eyes. Hidden away I watch and scan the marshland and rough grazing grounds that these owls love to feed and live on and being a ground dwelling bird they blend in so well with their plumage colours.

Their feathers a mixture of bold bands and rings forming a wonderful pattern that renders them invisible once they are on the ground. Sometimes you hear them before you see them, a loud short “bark” like call echoes across the area. They are normally late risers, starting to hunt from lunchtime onwards but I have noticed after a period of wet weather they can come out from first light, as they need to feed and recover lost time and build up those supplies of food that will see them through the cold weather.

Once in the air you witness their broad, stiff wings flap with great purpose almost in a slow motion fashion, covering the ground well with each rise and fall of their wing beats. Once they leave the sky and come down low you almost lose them among the vegetation colours, until you see their white under wings as they pass by. The distinctive black bands and bold barred tail standing proudly as they glide in between their wing beats.

I have had mixed fortune with the weather so far, after one of the mildest autumns since records begin the weather has changed getting colder with windy and wet weather a lot of time, with the odd break in the cloud sometimes, warming the areas in which these owls are at present. In weather that all owls dislike and choose not to hunt in, survival is by feeding on their larder of food which they stock pile when the goings good and keeps they going until hopefully the weather breaks. If the weather doesn’t change I have known Short-eared Owls to leave an area, vanish to warmer climets way before the late February get away, back to their breeding grounds.

Their bright yellow eyes are surrounded by smudged black makeup, set in a large round, disc like shaped face which is stunning to the eye as they glare at you before flying past. They always seem so startled by the world around them as I watch them hunt or perhaps that’s defiance, but they are full of character and self belief and watching them hunting and comb an area for prey is a magical experience to witness.

They fly warily around each other, closing and drifting apart, rising and falling, slowly spiraling in wide circles, as they drift across the marshland. Notoriously during the breeding seasons they are very territorial and fiercely defensive of their area. But during the winter months as they glide around our countryside almost in a nomadic manner are very tolerant of each other.

I am hoping the cold weather of the last two winters doesn’t happen this year as along with the Barn Owl many Short eared Owls died due to being unable to feed and break through the frozen ground that at times was covered in snow for days even weeks at a time making the whole process of finding food a real contest of pure survival.

I will be concentrating my efforts in the sites I have known for many years over the next several months and I hope to capture a few more images and spend some time filming and watching these beautiful owls. I will update my blog on how I get on during that time and fingers crossed the weather doesn’t betray them, forcing them to move on to other areas.

WWT Photography Competition 2011-2012

I am delighted to have been asked for a second year to become one of the regional judges in this brilliant photography competition. Over the last week I have judged two categories which I was assigned from the Martin Mere wetland centre. Choosing my selection from the autumn heat which then goes onto the final. When the competition closes on 31 August 2012 all regional heat winners will go through to the grand national final to be held in autumn 2012. Then the Portfolio Photographer will be chosen and awarded the grand prize of a trip to Antarctica.

The winter heat is now open until the 29^th February 2012 so click on the following link for more information and details of how to enter this brilliant competition. I visit Martin Mere quite a lot, and during the winter months they have the beautiful Whooper and Bewick Swans as visitors, as they spend their winter months with us before heading back north to their summer breeding grounds. The image above was taken at Martin Mere showing three Whooper Swans flying in against the cold winter sky on a frosty day.The very best of  luck to everyone that enters.

Over the last few weeks I have been approached by various different people from different organizations who have asked me if I would do some presentational talks.  Upon meeting me my real and genuine passion for the natural world and the origin of this passion comes flowing out, which I feel would form a strong basis to any talks that I may do.  So while displaying my work at the Pavilion Gardens, Buxton, Derbyshire this weekend during their Arts and Craft event I was asked again by a few people from a couple of different clubs.

Its an idea I have been thinking of for sometime as my beginning into wildlife and photography has a real beginning and story, one I’d like to share and hopefully inspire people with, so that you too can see and benefit from the beauty of nature all around us,  at the same time going out exploring, watching and capturing what you see, to show others of the beauty of wildlife and how it can enrich your life.

My journey to become a wildlife photographer was born out of a love and fascination of the natural world from a young age upon receiving my first wildlife book called Animal World.  This was an 8th birthday present from my mum and started my love and fascination for the natural world.  My representation of this world is my interest for creating a unique and artistic reflection of what I see and my images are simplified visions of this seen through my eyes, with the emphasis on composition, lighting and colour at the very heart of each picture, capturing their beauty, fascination and graceful expression with each image.

From those early days I spent so much time being at one with nature, close to and watching, hidden from view on the off chance that I would see a certain animal. I distanced myself from children’s games and activities instead heading to a nearby stretch of wilderness within the mass housing estate I grew up in. By learning to get close to wildlife without disturbing the life of the animal, almost forgetting the outside world and becoming part of the animal I was getting close to, I began to understand the animal better, gaining many skills by observing their behaviours while at the same time giving the subject complete respect which allowed me a private window into their personal and private lives.

This skill is one of many I use within my own wildlife photography today derived from those early encounters with nature.  This lose yourself to nature approach enables me to get close enough to capture the animal’s beauty and behaviour which both feature strongly in my style of photography, showing a wild animal within their natural habitat being the foundation to my work today through the images I see, then framing them through my camera’s viewfinder.

Where my creative and emotional attachment to nature is at the very heart of each image, creating a unique and artistic refection of my time in the field. It is my intention to use these reflections of the natural world to bring people’s awareness of what beautiful wildlife we have on our doorstep and all around us and the importance of conservation and the need to preserve our national heritage.

I will be presenting 3 talks at the North West Bird Watching Festival on the 21st November at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Martin Mere  here I will be going through tips and advice on wildlife photography and fieldcraft as well as presenting a powerful slideshow of my images showing the beautiful winter wildlife that you can see during our winter months, some are migrants to these shores during this time and others become easier to see.  After each talk you are then welcome to join me around some of the pools at Martin Mere where you can try out some of my tips with guidence.

I have also been invited to help with their Annual Photographic Competition- WWT Photo Competition .  A One To One day with myself will be presented as one of the available prizes for the competition.  I will update you with more details in the coming weeks.  In the meantime if you would like to make a booking with me to do a presentational talk then please contact me for more details.