The Highs And Lows
As there is nothing local worth photographing this winter I have decided to do the year-end review and choose my dozen favourite photos of the year. 2024 has been a year of extreme highs and lows.
In January we still had some Waxwings around from last winter’s invasion so I had to have one of those in the list as it could be years before we have another influx. January also had the coldest weather and heaviest snowfall of the winter. In these cold, crisp conditions I came across six different Jack Snipe as they fed along a Pennine stream. Never again will I have such a perfect filming opportunity and I made the most of it!
On our February visit to Speyside there were plenty of Snow Buntings on Cairngorm but better still on the Moray coast I was finally able to obtain photos of drake Long Tailed Ducks in winter plumage. There are few birds that look better in winter than summer but the Long Tailed Duck is the best.
Owls always feature heavily in my filming year and this year, for seven months, I was out waiting for a chance photo from a passing bird. Sadly the only pair of Short Eared Owls that I found succumbed to three days of torrential rain and soon disappeared. Barn Owls were a local success story and three fledged young even posed together for me in their barn in September.
Not many years go by when I do not photograph breeding Kingfishers and this year I was in for a surprise when one of the adults caught a Lamprey! It was still alive and provided me with my most unique photos of the year.
Normally our two visits to Islay per year result in a great wealth of photo opportunities but this year has been a complete disaster. All of June had cold northerly winds and low temperatures, conditions not suitable for disturbing breeding Hen Harriers so I left them alone this year. In October, as I was all set to film Otters on Jura, an Atlantic storm arrived and we had to leave two days early otherwise we could have been stranded for another week!
Last month I made contact with the Bearded Tits at Leighton Moss and while the light was poor there was plenty of action around the grit-trays. I had forgotten what absolute gems they are.
What will 2025 bring?
Deep in the reed-bed of a nature reserve in north Lancashire is an amazing bird that seldom shows itself – it is the Bearded Tit or Reedling. It is one of the few species of bird that change their diet from insects in summers to the seeds of reeds in winter. To do this every autumn they ingest grit which enables their stomach to process the seeds. When they start to ingest the grit is the best time to obtain photos as they fly from the reeds by the dozen onto paths and trays put out specially for them.
Before leaving Islay, until our return next June, it would be remiss of me not to mention the bird that first brought us to Islay in 1976 – the Hen Harrier. There can be few better places to see Hen Harriers in Winter than Islay. It is not uncommon to encounter five or six different birds on a trip around the island. In fact you have a better chance to see female Harriers in Winter than in Summer when they are occupied hatching their eggs or brooding their young in the deep heather. In the 48 years since 1976 I count myself lucky to have intensively studied and filmed over sixty pairs of Islay’s Hen Harriers as well as ringing over 200 of their young.
In Winter Islay must have at least twenty Sea Eagles, all attracted to the Island by the abundance of prey in the form of the Geese. As these Eagles move around the island they regularly come into conflict with Islays resident Buzzards. Surprisingly, the Sea Eagles don’t always win these disputes.
On Islay in winter there are now more than a dozen Sea Eagles.They are there for one good reason – to eat some of the thirty thousand or more Barnacle Geese that visit Islay every winter. Whenever an Eagle takes wing it causes chaos amongst the geese. Whilst the Eagle does not catch every time it does provide the photographer with amazing photos of the thousands of geese in flight.