Heading South
In the last couple of weeks Ospreys have spent time fishing lakes and reservoirs in the Pennines as they headed south to their wintering grounds in Africa. Whenever I see an Osprey it always takes me back 15 years to a magical day, when I spent 11 hours in a hide, 20 foot off the ground, overlooking an Osprey nest that contained three large young. It was a day that I will never forget due to the fact that in those eleven hours the male brought 9 fish back to the nest! I sat t?ere taking still photos and video that I will never get chance to repeat!
For more than fifty years I have walked the local canal tow-path and admired the wildlife that calls it home. At present young Kingfishers and Common Sandpipers are on the move with adjacent fields attracting a flock of over a hundred Goldfinches feeding on the thistle seeds.A Roebuck regularly swims across the canal but not when I have my camera! Coot are not common on the canal but, unfortunately, Canada Geese and Cormorants are and taking increasing numbers of fish. In winter Fox tracks are regularly seen as the sun sets beyond the sky-scrapers of central Manchester.
It is now nearly four years since the Covid restrictions were relaxed and we were again able to visit Islay. After losing our June holiday I was anxious to re-visit Jura to search for Otters. When we arrived at the ferry the ferry-man informed us that as nothing on Jura was open to the public the island was effectively closed! When we told him that we had no intention of meeting people and only wanted to film Otters we are finally allowed to cross the Sound. What followed was our best ever encounter of an Otter coming ashore with an Octopus.
August is the time to visit Spitsbergen to look for Polar Bears as there is less sea-ice then and many of the remote fiords are accessible to the cruise-ships. Any wildlife enthusiast lucky enough to visit Spitsbergen will have Polar Bear and Ivory Gull at the top of their wish list.With luck you may come across a Polar Bear on a kill surrounded by Ivory Gulls. It sounds fanciful but that is what happened on my seventh and last visit!!
For the male Barn Owl breeding time is his most demanding time of the year.For four months he has to provide all the food for the female and their young.I have never spent as much time filming any species as I have on my pair of Barn Owls as they have five young about to fledge necessitating constant demands for Voles, Shrews and Mice. Not every filming session was successful and I have spent long hours looking at an empty field or dodging the farmers cattle!!
It is now ten years since I last filmed Barn Owls in summer but I had not forgotten how spectacular they are as they hunt at sunset on a summer evening. Technically they give you lots of problems being white birds against a shadowy background and they never fly where you want them to!! However, I have just spent four months in the company of a pair of Barn Owls picking off shots of these ghosts as they carry out their crepuscular activities. More to follow next week!!