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

Water Voles

I spent an interesting day partly at Brandon Marsh and partly at a site in Warwickshire on a Water Vole Surveying course.  (Thanks Tim, it was a great day)

Water Voles have been a target species for me for a while, but as with a number of potential projects, I haven't done anything about it due to time constraints until now.

Now knowing very little about these delightful and rapidly declining animals, Jac and I booked on a course for surveying them. 

The great thing about doing  little courses like this is that you find out so much about your subject, their habits, habitat and critically how to find out where they live.

After spending a few hours in the class room doing the theory stuff we went to the field site and saw two.

I managed a quick handheld grab shot that is really very poor and a big crop, but at least it helps to identify the creature positively.

All we have to do know is find some more nearer home, and be patient.

I can recommend courses like these though - check out your nearest Wildlife Trust for details.

Martin

One Swallow doesn't make a summer......

.....but we were fortunate enough to see half a dozen or so in two different locations on Sunday.

Having lost an hour of sleep due to the change to BST, I tentatively woke Jac before our good friend and fellow wildlife photographer Robbie came by.  For regular readers, you may remember Robbies great blogpost a few weeks back.  If you didnt see it first time round, then it is not to be missed and here is the link for you. 

We set off across to Worcestershire to see a Slavonian Grebe that has been around for a while, but sadly for us, it appears to have moved on.  I shouldnt be too disappointed really as i did get some great images a couple of years back while on Mull.

But while there was no Slav, we did see dozens of Sand Martins darting across the surface of the ponds.  What a great view this was of my first Martins of the year.

We moved on to another location and saw a good mix of water birds including Wigeon, Shoveller, Tufted Duck, Little Grebe and Great Crested Grebe among many others.  We also heard our first singing Chiff Chaffs of Spring, which was joined by Blackcap.

We then moved on to Upton Warren Moors Pool near Bromsgrove, managed by the Worcester Wildlife Trust.  Here we saw our first Willow Warbler and Swallows of the summer.  About a dozen Great Crested Grebes were busy showing on the far side of the pools, but closer to hand there were a couple of Little Egrets and some noisy displaying Oystercatcher.  It was good to see these so far in land.  There were also plenty of Shoveller, Teal and Snipe hidden down in the grass.

 Single Oystercatcher

Pair  mirroring as part of mating behaviour

Pair calling as next phase of mating behaviour

Caught in the act just before he fell off her

Little Egret

We heard  Kingfisher and Cettis Warbler but didn't see either.

Next stop was Brandon Marsh near Coventry, this one managed by the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust.  This is a great reserve with a good mix of habitat, and it delighted us with our sightings.

Swallows and Sand Martins were much in evidence as were many of the water birds that we had already seen, but we did some some lovely close up Snipe in the open just in front of the hide.

Snipe in open habitat

Another one of the Snipe

 As you can see from the light on all the images, it was a generally overcast day.

The blue flash of a Kingfisher was one of a couple sightings for us as it sped across the lake.  I heard the call before I saw it.

Walking back through the woods we were delighted also to see Male Bullfinch.  Robbie's finely tuned ears heard it before we saw it but it did look fabulous.  Too far to photograph really so we just enjoyed watching it.

Other highlights included some great views of Treecreeper, and we also heard three separate Water Rail, with a fleeting glimpse of one of them.

As an aside, I think Bullfinches must be like buses.  You don't see them for ages, and then three turn up, as I was lucky enough to see a pair in my garden yesterday when I got home.

So all in all a great day - loads of species, good weather, great company and a few images to share on the blog

Martin

Business, Wildlife and Charity - Can they mix?

Yes and no. Like many things - it all depends!!

Fortunately, here in the UK, much of the new planning requirements place the emphasis on developers to carry out Habitat and Environmental Impact Assessments. Developers live in fear of having Bats and Great Crested Newts on their potential sites for that reason.

Clearly, we can all think of many examples where business is bad for wildlife. Major oil leaks from tankers create local disasters for sea life and seabirds, although nature can very often recover , provided the weather and conditions allow.

Many businesses take a far more proactive response to wildlife, and my own discussions recently with the Wildlife Trusts demonstrate that.

Where I work, we have a strong management protocol to look after our habitats and wildlife, as I mentioned on this blogpost, as to the lengths we went to manage the situation for a breeding pair of Great Crested Newts.

This brings me to the main point of today's post.

On Sunday I will be visiting Blyth Valley Business Park, near Solihull in the West Midlands, and hopefully completing a 10K fun run around the park, which has been sympathetically designed and layed out to help and assist nature and wildlife.

So I will be getting a close up view of 2.5K's worth of it - four times.

I have never done a run of this type, so thought I had better get on with it, as I was 50 this year, so now is as good as any other time.

I have done a bit of training, and hope to complete (un) comfortably in an hour.

I am setting out to raise money for the Marie Curie Cancer Care charity, which is the nominated charity of my work this year.

Here is my Just Giving link, so if you are in a position to and feel you want to, the charity will be grateful for any contributions, as will I be.

And then hopefully, I can get back there later in the year, and get some wildlife images from the Park.

Finally, a quick thanks and acknowledgement to Alex, over at Canon Fodder Forums, who was also happy to post my appeal.

Thanks for indulging me this once - I will try not to make a habit of it. It is too painful anyway.

Martin

Wildlife Trusts

Well I am a bit later today, but the right side of midnight to keep up our 100% posting record.

In the course of my work this last week, I met up with the Regional Corporate Manager for my local Wildlife Trust to discuss the work we do at my place of employment. This got me thinking that I needed to mention them on the blog.

What I found surprising is that there are more members of the Wildlife Trusts than the RSPB.

I found another interesting link of news following my story here about Hen Harriers. Great to see a good news story I found here about these much persecuted and enigmatic birds.

Here in Warwickshire, we have many great reserves that are managed by the Wildlife Trusts. Dave and I went to the main centre at Brandon Marsh about 18 months ago and watched the early arrival Sand Martins flying around over the lakes in a snow storm in March - quite bizarre.

Take a visit to their main website here and check them out, and why not join your local one and see what you can photograph. I am certainly pleased with a number of images I have got from their sites. Here are a couple of Great Crested Grebes, from I think what was my first outing with my 500f4L lens.

Martin