New Hides are horrible for Photographers

As a reasonably regular visitor to various wildlife reserves across the country, I continue to be amazed at the lack of decent facilities for photographers or consideration for the very different requirements for photogaphers compared to birders.

Some of the new designs and incarnations are truly awful as can be seen at the monster hide at RSPB Titchwell and the latest 'thing' at RSPB Minsmere.

Massive windows, strange mechanisms to operate the glass, and really high view points. Now for birders, I understand that this is fine - get up high, have a massive vista in front of you, and with your 60X scope, you can watch Wrens and Goldcrest from 50 miles away.

Now photography is not that unpopular a pastime, and judging by the numbers I see at these locations lugging their 500 and 600's around, there are a lot of us, but sometimes, it feels like we might as well be a bunch of lepers.

Where are the low viewpointrs, sympathetic positioning with light and habitat management? These things are not mutually exclusive to wildlife, so go on you lot at WWT, RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts please try thinking about us the next time you build hides.

Now I know there was a great little photographers hide at Snettisham, tha required the photographers to go in and out at certain times, and this got abused by some, and so it was spoiled for all. I know as I tried to book this a couple of years back when it was taken out of service.

I dont think we are asking for that. General access is fine, but get us down low please. One of the best for this that I have used is the South Lake at Slimbridge, when the water levels are up.

Here is an image from South Lake at Slimbridge to show what I mean, plus a Marsh Harrier in flight at the Bittern Hide at Minsmere. Which other than this type of in flight is hopeless for photography.

So you reserve people, feel free to give us your thoughts. We will even let you have a right to reply blog spot post if you want it, and to our regular readers, let us know what you think or the good hides around the country.

Martin

The bad news never ceases and has set me off on one

So now it is four Goshawks poisoned in Devon.  The sad tales of wanton and criminal killing just don't stop do they?

This is one area for the wildlife NGO's to really get after in my opinion.  Organisations like the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts get millions and millions of pounds each and every year but never appear to address this issue with any lasting results through their lobbying and politicking.    Yes we hear the stories and their 'outrage' but that's about it in terms of getting things done.  They seem to be too far up their own parts having a pop at the government of the day trying to stop the economic development of our land.  With their over dramatic posturing on such proposals as reforming the planning legislation and building new High Speed rail lines, setting out their views that it will be the end of the world and wildlife as we know it, it is about time they put their efforts into the real activities like this that needs to be stopped.

 Watching a re-run of Birds Britannia on BBC4 on Monday night reminded me that these organisations are keen to extract our money with honeypot schemes like White Tailed Eagles, Ospreys and Red Kites, where they can easily be seen, but we need much better work from them against the vested commercial interests of the large shooting estates, and against farming policies where the large prairie like, sterile monoculture fields represent our 'green' countryside, that is yellow one week, green the next, brown the following one, devoid of wildlife.

We know that it is the Common Agricultural policy that has caused the biggest destruction of the UK wildlife through farming practices.  It is not building, it is not transport projects.  Some of the best wildlife sites in the UK are from brownfield sites that have had the hand of man on them in times past.  Here in Warwickshire nearly all the best wildlife sites and reserves are 'hand of man' sites that have been reclaimed.

In fact, the only truly wild part of the UK is in small parts of Scotland and on the Arctic plateau of the Cairngorms - the rest of our green and pleasant land has been totally shaped by man.

Sadly our biased media in this country don't focus on these aspects as I suspect there are too many commercial and vested interests at work.

Our wildlife organisations do good things with their reserves, and I am not decrying that, although it should be remembered that unless there are wildlife corridors connecting them, we are just building fence less wildlife zoos.  

So I will stop now before I get too tedious.

Would love to hear your views and comments on these subjects.

Martin

Autumn Spectaculars

Dave recently mentioned that with fall comes some great opportunities for the autumn colours.

Here is the UK, one such location that is always wonderful in October is the arboretum at Westonbirt.  This year they have a great little photo blog so you can keep an eye on the colours yourself and judge when to go.  It will probably be in a couple of weeks time when they are at their best.  I usually try to go for early doors first thing, and get there before the crowds and if you can make it a weekday then even better.

On the other side of the country in North Norfolk, this coming weekend is one of the best for the Knot Spectacular at RSPB Snettisham.  I am quite happy to tell you all about this, as I will not be heading that way as I have other plans.  The Knot Spectacular only happens a few times a year and is dependant on the highest tides pushing thousands of birds off the tidal estuary of the Wash and onto the land.  There used to be a special photographers hide there for two people set very low.  It was closed at the end of 2008 due to some photographers not abiding by the rules to go in and out at certain times/states of the tides, resulting in the disturbance of the birds, and spoiling the day for the other watchers in the main hides.  Once again, a few spoiling it for the majority, which is a sad state of affairs, but not untypical of some photographers of wildlife, rather than wildlife photographers who will always consider their subject before the photograph.

As for my plans? - well you will have to wait and see what I write about and post next week.

Martin

Quick Reminder

As posted back a couple of days ago, this weekend is the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch.

I just submitted my results from first thing, total of 12 species with the scarcer species of Great Spotted Woodpecker and Mistle Thrush.

Let us know what you recorded

Martin

That time of year again - RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch

It's this weekend folks, so get your chairs pulled up to the windows, get your binos out and a nice big mug of hot tea and toast and get your results in.

Not sure what day I will be doing it, but all the info is here.

Lets us know of any unusual sightings that you might have on the comment section.

Martin

News - More bad news, sadly

Had this just come through from the RSPB.

Please support it if you can.

Not a happy bunny reading that :-(

Birds of Prey - Help Stop the Killing now

Martin

News (Sad) - The Swifts are leaving

It only seems like five minutes ago that I wrote this blog posting about the arrival of the Swifts over my house. How time passes quickly.

Today while I was sitting at my PC at work writing up various reports, I glanced out of the window to see many Swifts, quite low over the buildings, in the terrible weather all heading south or southwest. Now I don't usually see Swifts over the office very much so it was an unusual sight. This carried on throughout the day. So it looks like they are heading back south on their exceptionally long migration back to southern Africa.

This lead me to thinking about some of mine and Dave's philosophies about wildlife photography. We have set out to make this an entertaining, educational and generally useful blog for a wide range of readers from a photographic perspective. However, it is also important , if we are genuinely passionate about the natural world to ensure that we understand our subjects, learn about them and increase our knowledge, particularly where circumstances make their lives difficult.

I also recently posted about the RSPB Swift survey that I hope that you responded too - please be quick if you haven't before they have all gone south.

So one of my favourite birds will not be back for another nine months. It seems rather ironic that such a fabulous bird only stays for such a short time.

Martin

News (sad) - Sea Eagles on Mull update

I posted this story a few days ago which was good news at the time.

Well I received an email from the Isle of Mull Bird Club today with the sad news that chick no.1 at the RSPB Loch Frisa site has died. He was retrieved from under the nest site a couple of days ago by the Dave Sexton, RSPB Officer on Mull.

This bird had appeared to fledge early, approximately one and half weeks early. A post mortem will be carried out but it is thought possible that it had fallen out, and sustained an injury.

The good news is that the second chick now fledged normally and is being fed by it's parents in the usual place. So if you are on Mull over the next few weeks, good views can still be had from the hide. Details can be found here.

Mustn't forget to mention my good friends Pam and Arthur Brown who run wildlife tours with Discover Mull, and have never yet not seen Sea Eagles when I have been out with them.

And on a final note it is Happy 70th Birthday to my Mum today - have a good one Mum

Martin

Swifts - The RSPB need your help

I reported here how pleased I was to see the Swifts back in the skies over my house.

Well it seems that Swift numbers, like many other birds sadly, are significantly down as reported here. As a result, the RSPB are calling for reporting. So if you have any near to you, then send them the details here.

I will be sending my reports in later today

Martin

From the archives - Marsh Harriers at Minsmere

Now is a great time of year to get along to RSPB Minsmere and take a visit to either the Bittern or Island Hides to get some in flight shots of the Marsh Harriers.

I have been there for the last two years and have had some great views.

Best time is first thing so you can get some space in the hides and also to catch the early light.

If you are lucky then you will also get some great views of Bittern too - either flight shots from the Bittern Hide or ground shots from the Island Hide. I usually have some bright spark tell me that they had great views ten minutes previously.

On a good spring day it is easy enough to see up to 100 species in a full day. You can also get great close up pictures of Avocet and Swallows down by the Sluice - just sit on the ground by the posts and wait for them to come to you.

Minsmere really is the birders jewel in the crown and every photographer should get there at least once in their life, and now is the best time of the year

Martin

News - a couple of odds and bods

Just a short news week round up from me. It has been a busy week preparing images and prints for various entries to exhibitions. Last week was my digital entries to the RPS Nature Group and the FIAP Small Print Circuit, a new circuit of four exhibitions for A4 unmounted prints. This is a good format to help keep down the costs. I have put some work in the Natural History section so we will have to see how that goes. Apparently there are over 5000 entries to all sections so it has been very well subscribed. At a local level, we had Merit comps at both Stratford Photo Group and Smethwick Photo Society, and got my butt firmly whacked in both by my partner Sue. Must try harder!!.

This weekend I will be finalising my prints for RPS Nature Exhibition. I will be writing a future blog post on my experiences with the Canon Pixma Pro9500 now that I have received the ICC profiles from Permajet. I have to say that I am blown away with the quality of the papers, I have used so far, so watch this space for a more comprehensive review soon.

I will update the Local Patch series on Sunday with more news and updates from round here - one or two new items of interest for you I hope. I shall be out hopefully tomorrow to see if I can get some images of the local Fieldfare, as these have eluded me so far.

Keep your eye on the weather as it is supposed to be going very cold again, and keep those food and water levels topped up in your gardens. I did the RSPB Big Garden Watch last weekend - quite disappointing in terms of the number of species seen during the hour I made available, and of course Sods Law dictated that the next hour saw masses of bird back in.

Martin

News and a few views

Just a short update from me today, having just got back from a meeting with a few folks from the RPS Nature Group as we get ready for the 2009 Exhibition. Images from last years exhibition can be seen here. My partner Sue is this years Exhibition Secretary and so we now have a house full of printed work, and stunning it looks too of the some of the work submitted so far, and I am sure that the digital entries will be stunning quality too, with the anticipation of increased numbers this year.

On the news front, this week has seen Canon updated the firmware for the 40D - who said it was superseded then? I occasionally steal Sue's 40D so will get that updated in a couple of weeks time. I like to leave any firmware updates for a couple of weeks before updating, unless it is a specific problems that I am experiencing. There are plenty of people who will be the beta testers for me, and the forums are full of problems , real or perceived soon enough. The only area where I didn't follow this was when I was going through the traumas of the 1Dmk3 AF issues last year.

To follow up the the 5Dmk2 recent upgrades, posted here, Adobe have released Lightroom v2.3 and ACR 5.3 as release candidate status. This was a new one on me but apparently means they are seeking further 'community' testing, as set out in more detail in DPR.

I finally bought into the Lightroom way of life over the Christmas holiday period and am getting to grips with it slowly. My main reason is simply for the Digital Asset Management (DAM) capabilities, as this is one area that I am sadly lacking and having had a good friend Andy Page show me some capability I can see where he is coming from, pity it cost me though.

Finally, there was a thread last night on EOS Forums pointing out that Calumet were selling the Canon 800 f5.6 IS L lens for just over £900. Well worth a punt I thought, but as to be expected there was a prompt email in my inbox this morning explaining the computer error. More like operator error!!

If you haven't done the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch today, then you have still got the opportunity on Sunday' We would love to hear of your sightings so please do leave some comments with what you have seen.

Dave will be back tomorrow with an update from his garden and local patch since we started blogging.

Martin

Views - Subject comes before Photo

Now clearly for the majority of wildlife photographer this is stating the blinking obvious, but trawling forums and other places in web land, there are a remarkable number of people who are not aware of the Laws, certainly here in the UK.

The Wildlife Photographer's Code of Practice is compiled by the Royal Photographic Society Nature Group in conjunction with the RSPB and the three Statutory Nature Conservation Councils. So it is worth a reminder that many bird species, including such birds as the Kingfisher and Barn Owl are Schedule 1 species and require the appropriate consideration of the Law when photographing at certain times of the year. Ignorance of the law is no defence as we all know so please familiarise yourself with the relevant points as we head towards nesting season in the next couple of months or so.

Last year on Mull, a photographer disturbed one of the White Tailed Sea Eagles nests, resulting in the bird abandoning the nest and subsequent failure for that pair for the year. More details here. This sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable and causes more problems for other photographers afterwards.

Mull is a fabulous place to visit, with wonderful wildlife throughout the year and a place that I try to get to every year to see my friends Pam and Arthur Brown who run Discover Mull Wildlife Tours.

Anyway, I'll step off my soapbox now, but if we do really care about what we are trying to photograph, we will make sure that their welfare comes first, tempting as that shot of lifetime might be.

Martin