Britain’s Rarest Slipper
As a variation from birds we took the opportunity to photograph one of only two Lady’s Slipper Orchids in Britain. The flower heads were just beginning to open and it was a rare treat to see this gem in the Cumbrian countryside.
Worst May Weather Ever
All week it has rained with a strong wind blowing over the hills and once again it was impossible to consider filming the Golden Plover – today the young fledged. We shall now have to wait until next year! The highlight of the week was obtaining film of the Ring Ouzels. The female is on […]
Lesser Spotted Perform
I only took one still shot through the video camera and here it is the male Lesser Spotted Woodpecker about to enter the nest hole to feed newly hatched young. I had a magical three and a half hours filming on a sunny afternoon and the big bonus was that on two occasions the male […]
Blown Away
One of the bonuses of being out there in the wild is that even when the birds don’t perform the weather can. This photo of a Pennine sunset was the only highlight of a night waiting to film hunting male Long Eared Owls. The birds failed to perform but after an evening shower the pink […]
Migration Continues
This weeks photo shows two of the fifty three Black Tailed Godwits that passed through Islay last week. It was taken as a still photo through the video camera and is only one million megapixels but the results never cease to amaze me. The wader passage on Islay continued into our second week with a […]
The Ultimate Challenge
We have just had a week on Islay and succeeded in filming Ravens feeding their young. For those of you who do not know Ravens are one of the most difficult birds to film at the nest as they are very intelligent and extremely wary. Whilst they are not popular with farmers from a photographers […]
Easter Disaster
This male Long Eared Owl in the photo was found roosting by his incubating female on Easter Saturday and looked quite proud to be protecting her while she incubated the eggs in an old Magpies nest. Their world was turned upside down the next day when youths pitched three tents under their nesting tree and […]
Lekking Blackcock
Further to last weeks blog the real reason to visit the Northern Dales was to wait for a perfect morning to film lekking Blackcock. Well it came along and I entered my hide at 4am in total darkness.By 5am the valley was alive with the calls of Waders and by 5.15am the first Blackcock flew […]
Wader Extravaganza
Good weather has returned this last week and I have spent two days in the Northern Dales filming waders including the Snipe on the blog. It was amazing at dusk and dawn to see and listen to displaying waders that included Woodcock, Snipe, Redshank, Lapwings, Oyster Catchers and Curlew. Many of our local hills had […]
Can You Spare A Feather?
A wild and windy week but it has not stopped the Long Tailed Tits gathering feathers to line their nest’s with. All six nests that I have found are now at this stage and when you consider that some one counted more than two thousand feathers inside a Long Tailed Tits nest they have some […]