Blog Posts in Category: Wildlife

This weekend was one of the few weekends that I spend in Exeter and it happened to coincide with a friends birthday and to celebrate this we headed down to Paignton zoo for the day and I couldn’t resist the chance to take my camera to photograph the animals. It turned out to be a very enjoyable day with great company despite it being bitterly cold and overcast, though I nearly didn’t make it there twice as I missed the train as you can no longer buy tickets on the train from Exeter Central and there was a long queue for tickets and then when I was driving down I nearly ran out of fuel on the duel carriageway! Getting photos was harder than I expected due to having fences and people in the way or animals just not playing ball (though that is expected!). Although it was a good day I couldn’t help but feel sad for some of the animals, especially the larger animals such as the elephants and rhinos as well as some of the birds such as owls that were confined to what seemed like fairly. Read the full article…

Today I was due to head up to Snowdonia to photograph the RAF fly their jets at low level with David from VeroPhotography but due to forcasts of snow and blizzards we decided to head to Slimbridge Wetland Centre in Gloucestershire instead to photograph some birds and ducks. It was a very different form of wildlife photography than I am used to as over the summer I speant many hours sitting in a hide near Glasgow waiting for birds to come but here we just walked around and could see loads of rare birds with no waiting, in fact one of the hard parts was just getting a shot with no other birds or parts of birds in! And even when we were in the hides waiting for more specific things such as birds in flight we were never waiting that long as there was so much to do while we were there.

I am back up in Glasgow for a few more weeks on an extension to my summer internship, so I decided to go to Lochwinnoch again in the hope of some good activity. Unfortunatly it was a fairly quiet day with variable weather.  There were however alot of chaffinches so in flight shots was the name of the game and here is one that worked.  They don’t half move quickly!  We did get a visit by a pair of Coal Tits and a Grey Wagtail.

Well this weekend I had planned to go walking but unfortunately I didn’t have time so decided to pop over to Lochwinnoch in the afternoon and ended up staying there for 7 hours.  It was a very slow afternoon as the Sparrowhawks were about all afternoon but just hiding in the bushes which kept all the other birds away but eventually they came out to play which made the wait worth it.  Now this is probabilly my last trip as i am moving back down south on Thursday however there is a chance I will be back in Glasgow for a few weeks in September so might get another trip in then.

Today was probabilly my last visit to this RSPB reserve as I am only up in Scotland for one more weekend and I am probabilly busy both days.  It was a good day albeit a bit slow with lots of Chaffinches and tits but the few other birds that appeared more than made up for it and the company made the gaps between them go quickly!  We got treated to a Sparrowhawk but unfortunatly it only landed on some green wire a long way away in the shade but it was still great to see, the Greater Spotted Woodpeckers also came twice but played hard to get by hiding on the wrong side of the perch.  Due to the slow day in the middle I had a wonder over to the hide in the woods where it was very dark but there were two Juvenile Robins about which was great.

Having recently added a 300mm f/4 to my collection of lenses I figured it was about time I did some bird photography, so I have headed out to my current local spot which while I am up in Glasgow is the RSPB site at Lochwinnoch. It has prooved a good challenge and is also surprisingly enjoyable with every time I have headed to the hide having met other people there who have provided good company.