My Favourite Images (3)

The third in the series of some of my favourite images.


Hoopoe
This bird turned up in Scotland a few years ago. I decided to make the long journey to photograph it having heard that it was very tame. It certainly was, this being a full frame image taken with a 300mm lens.

Grey Heron
Another very approachable bird, this one was stalking prey at the edge of a lake and let me get well within 10m.

Southern Hawker
When I photograph a Dragonfly I usually start by taking some shots with my 300mm lens, then if they seem settled enough I'll move in closer using a 60mm macro which is how I got this shot.

Gannet
A bit of a theme developing in this post as I have just realised that they are all un-cropped. I like this one because of the dark background which is the shaded sea.

Fulmar
Similar to the previous image with an even darker background, this time it was shaded cliffs giving the contrast.

Close Ups with a Warning

It's that time of year when my attention turns do doing some macro photography. As I have said before I only dabble but this year I think I'll put a bit more effort in. I spent a few hours in the garden yesterday hoping to get some wasp shots, I managed a few but the star of the show was a Flesh Fly, hence the WARNING of some very detailed close-up fly images at the end of this post.

Wasp

Hoverfly

Bumble Bee

Flesh Fly

Wagtails

The first two images are a male Yellow Wagtail of the Spanish race. They are nothing like the common Yellow Wagtail species here in Britain which are pure yellow, as you can see from the third photo, the Spanish ones more resemble our Grey Wagtail which is the final image. Identification of the Yellows can be very confusing especially on spring migration here as we get lots of variations that are quite similar.

Spanish Yellow Wagtail

 

British Yellow Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

 

Butterflies

A few butterfly shots taken in my garden over the last couple of days.


Holly Blue

White-letter Hairstreak

Comma

 Meadow Brown

Warblers

Back in Mallorca we spent some time photographing Warblers which can always be time consuming. Some were a little easier than others, the best results being Sardinian, Balearic and the Zitting Cisticola which used to be known as the Fan-tailed Warbler.

Below are some of my favourites.

Something we noticed whilst photographing the Cisticola was how unusually black the inside of it's mouth was, see the last pic.

Sardinain Warbler

Balearic Warbler

Zitting Cisticola

Stone Curlews

During our week in Mallorca we had seen and heard plenty of Stone Curlews, photographing them was another story though. From past experience I know that these birds are very unapproachable, even at 100m they will start to move away from you. Having seen them distantly from a hide each evening it was on our last night, in fact
only an hour and a half before we were due to check in for our flight home, we had some amazing good luck. They came closer and closer to the hide until we were able to take frame filling shots of them, the best end to the week that we could have hoped for.

Grey Squirrels

It's a bit of a like-hate relationship with these in our garden, my wife likes them and I hate them. I have lost count of how many photographic projects have been disturbed or ruined by these pests, even though I go to great lengths to deter them. I will take the occasional photo of one, now and again.

Stoats

A couple of weeks ago I spent a few days photographing a family of Stoats. Having photographed these animals before I knew it wasn't going to be easy and they lived up to expectations. There were six young with their mother who spent the whole time catching food for them. A lot the the shots I took were of the young waiting for her to return. They literally don't keep still for more than a second, in most cases by the time you've pointed the camera at them they have gone. A lot of patience and many hours were needed for these shots, but a very enjoyable couple of days.

Jays

I have a family of five young Jays and two adults coming to feed at the moment. There is a lot of interaction between them that I have been trying to photograph with varying results. I haven't achieved the shots I am after yet, so more work to do on this one over the next week or so.

An adult

This parent was responding to one of the young which had landed nearby and was calling to be fed.

Juvenile

They don't seem to know what to do with the peanuts yet, often sitting with it in the beak like this for several minutes before putting it down again. They are still quite dependant on the parents.