Sandpiper Surprise

An old filming colleague of mine always reckoned that when I went into a hide the bird that we were filming would stand on its head for me whereas he got very few photos. My standard answer to this, apart from smiling, was to point out that I spent more time in the hide than he did so eventually luck would come my way. In wildlife photography your results are directly proportionate to the time you put in. A good example of this occured this week with the Kingfisher photo that appeared on BBC television. The day before the successful session I got nothing and the day after I got one photo. Not to be put off I went again the day after that and while the Kingfishers were illusive what should come walking down the stream was a bird I had never filmed before – a Green Sandpiper! This weeks blog and gallery include some of the photos I took of that magical bird plus some more of the Kingfisher food-pass photos. In wildlife photography there is no such day as tomorrow, you always have to capitalise on the moment in hand because seldom do you get a repeat performance. Click here

In the last week I have spent time searching for Woodcock but so far luck has not come my way. I did find a Mallard incubating nine eggs and twenty yards away another Mallard was incubating nine Mallard eggs and nine Pheasant eggs! Even more surprising fifty yards away from that was a Pheasants nest containing twenty four eggs! Clearly there are some confused birds in that wood.