Excuse me, are you sure you haven’t got any food…?
Tag: wildlife
Carrion Crow
This little cutie was begging for another piece of the muesli bar that I was eating.
Thatcham Nature Discovery Centre
Today we went to the Thatcham Nature Discovery Centre, for a wildlife photography course.
I learnt far more on this course than I did at the Twilight Photography one. I think the course and the teacher were just better suited to the way I like to learn.
I’m really pleased with today’s pictures (which are here, on Flickr), plus I had a lovely day out with Paul. We’re really looking forward to our holiday now, and contemplating buying another big zoom lens that we can fight over!
Canada Goose Drama
(Picture by Paul, taken in May 2008)
This weekend my parents came to visit. On Friday afternoon we all went down to the lake where we took part in a Canada Goose Drama.
A swan came and attacked all six of the goslings, splitting them up from their parents and chasing them away. As soon as the swan started bearing down on them, the goslings would dive underneath the water and then surface quite a distance away. One of the goslings leapt out of the lake, ran up the bank and ended up dashing down the steps onto the duck-watching platform which was full of my parents, me and Paul, plus two small boys and their Mum.
The gosling became entangled in abandoned fishing line (the fishing season only started last week and already there’s fishing line strewn everywhere), so I went over and untangled it. The poor gosling was so freaked out that it just stood there, and thankfully did not peck me to death. I then herded it back into the lake.
In the meantime one of the parents had come out of the lake to look for it. This adult goose arrived on the platform only to discover seven humans and NO GOSLING, and proceeded to hiss like mad and charge at us. The two little boys were understandably terrified, so my Dad and I attempted to herd the adult goose back into the lake as well. Unfortunately the adult goose was so cross that it wasn’t afraid of us, so we had to get rather close to it. This resulted in my Dad being heartily pecked on the knee. He was fine, but the two little boys are now rather frightened of angry geese.
We ended up staying at the lake for quite a while longer, counting the goslings and making sure they’d all made it back to their family despite the best efforts of the swan. Thankfully they were all fine, and hopefully the swan won’t continue to bother them too much.
Wolf Conservation Trust
Today we took a trip out to the Wolf Conservation Trust at Beenham for their open day. They’re not usually open to the general public, so the place was very busy. We took our cameras, and so did almost everybody else, but we were saddened to notice that the bigger the lens, the ruder the person behind it. Admittedly it was quite a difficult place for taking photographs. The wolves were often lying down in the long grass, so it was difficult to see them, and in most areas they were behind two layers of chain link fence which makes for irritatingly obscured pictures. But we saw people barging to the front of queues, pushing small children out of the way, hogging the limited space on the viewing platforms with tripods, and generally moaning that they weren’t able to get that elusive perfect shot. One man was even complaining that the birds of prey display had been set up “all wrong” because he couldn’t get a picture of a peregrine falcon without the owners’ vehicle behind it – as though the entire event should have been rearranged for his benefit!
I must admit that I was feeling a bit grumbly myself. I’m not very good at taking photos through wire mesh, I didn’t really have a long enough lens, and it’s difficult to manoeuvre an SLR and a walking stick at the same time. So I made an active decision that I didn’t want to turn into one of those whingeing photographers, and had a much nicer afternoon as a result. It was much more satisfying simply watching the wolves and the birds without squinting through a viewfinder and worrying about depth of field.
Much as I love taking photos (and you can see the ones I did manage to take over here), sometimes it’s nicer to put the camera away and simply look at the world. If you really want to take photos of wolves, the Wolf Conservation Trust run special photography days, where they’ll bring the wolves right out so that you can interact with them and get your perfect pictures without the fences being in the way.
We came back via something I wish I had taken a photo of – a lovely cream tea at The Spring in Sulhamstead. Two scones with jam and clotted cream, two pots of tea and two big slices of cake. Just what we needed to cheer ourselves up on a Bank Holiday afternoon.
Square Format
This is the big fat frog that hopped out from underneath the broken fence as we were pulling it down. He didn’t seem too keen to get out of our way – Paul had to rather unceremoniously pick him up and plop him down in next door’s plant pot!
This morning, whilst wandering around on Flickr, I joined a group for square format photographs. I tend to crop my nature photos into squares, so it seemed like an interesting place to look around and see what other people were doing.
In one of the discussion threads there was a conversation about square format digital cameras. That’s where I found out about the Rollieflex MiniDigi. It’s styled exactly like the original Rollei twin lens reflex camera, but it’s teeny-tiny! (Smaller than this frog, in fact.) Unfortunately it costs over £350, and the resolution’s only 3 megapixels, but it does look as though it would be fun to use. Also, cute!
(Not that “cute” is my primary criterion for choosing things. Of course not. “Does it come in pink?” is much more important. Obviously.)
Encounter With Owls…
I’m just dropping in for a flying visit to upload the photos from the first part of our honeymoon – you can see them all here.
Yesterday we had a Falconry session in the morning, and an Encounter With Owls in the afternoon. This enormous chap was featured in both. His name’s Woolly, and he’s an Eagle Owl.
We also met a Merlin called Angel, a Gyr/Peregrine Falcon called Romeo, a Harris Hawk called Miller, and lots and lots of owls.
I have to confess that I am a huge fan of birds in general, and birds of prey in particular, so getting to spend a couple of hours getting to feed them and fly them to the glove was absolutely amazing.
You can tell how much I enjoyed it by my enormous grin – that’s Woolly on my arm. I’m leaning slightly away from him because I’d already learnt the hard way that his wings were long enough to hit me in the face!
I don’t know of anywhere local that rescues or rehabilitates birds, but I might have to do a bit of research when I get home. It would be brilliant to be able to have contact with birds like this more often.
My grumpy little friend.
Look who I met today. Isn’t he adorable?
This little grey squirrel spent all morning running about in the rain, digging holes in my back garden and burying his stash of winter goodies.
When he’d finished, he decided that it would be a good idea to sit on my fence and bark/honk/screech at me for a good five minutes. Thanks, Mr Squirrel.
It wasn’t until fairly recently that I knew what noise a squirrel made. I’d heard the sound before, plenty of times, but because it was coming from up a tree I always assumed it was made by a bird. Here’s a short video (not mine) where you can hear it for yourself. Doesn’t he sound cross?!
You can see from the picture that it’s pretty dark and wet here today. It was properly dark when I got up this morning, for the first time this year, and I guess the squirrels have decided that it’s going to be winter soon.
I don’t mind seeing this little fellow around the garden – but I’d like him to be a little quieter next time! It’s difficult to concentrate on sewing when you’re being yelled at by a squirrel…
Scarves for bees!
No, not tiny little woollies to keep them warm. Instead, Seasalt in Cornwall are holding their annual “Go Knit!” charity drive.
This year they’re collecting donations of hand knitted scarves, and all proceeds from their sale will go to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
Bees and knitting are two of my passions, so obviously I’ve sent my scarf down to Cornwall. If you’d like to do the same, you can find the details here.
While I was thinking about scarves, I’ve re-listed a few on Etsy.
I have a whole pile of things that I’ve made which I haven’t got around to listing yet, so I should probably do that quite soon. Those badges and wheat bags aren’t going to sell themselves from the depths of my Shed!
Butterflies and Bees.
To make the most of the fact that I happened to be off sick on the one day in the last fortnight when it wasn’t chucking it down with rain the entire time, I went for a very short walk with the camera – just down to the edge of the lake and back.
Paul’s taken the 300mm lens with him to Germany, so instead of struggling with the 200mm, I decided to have a play with the macro (70mm) lens.
Sitting on the teasels was a slightly ragged Painted Lady butterfly. I sneaked up on it with the camera, and it wasn’t bothered in the slightest.
A bit further along there’s a big bank of thistles, and they were covered in bees! I saw at least four different types of bee, although I wasn’t able to get decent photos of all of them.
I’ve been lucky enough to have a very positive response to my photos since I’ve been using a digital SLR. I do have some up for sale in my Etsy store, but I thought I’d simplify the process even further and make a page right here when you can buy prints and canvases in a number of different sizes.
Up at the top of the page, there’s a shiny new tab marked “Photos“. Have a look, and let me know what you think!