Images of the year 2011-Japan

2011 certainly was a year of ups and downs for me but without doubt the highlight of the year was my trip to Japan, I had high expectations and the trip exceeded all of the by far, What a fantastic place for the wildlife photographer, i would have really loved to have managed a return trip this year but buying a new house emptied the kitty and it was too late to sell a lung, We took thousands of images and going through them it was difficult to know what was the favorites so here is a few that bought back some great memories

White Tailed and Stellers Eagles






Japanese Snow Monkey's

Whooper Swans


Japanese Red Crowned Cranes



Blackistons Fish Owl


A fantastic trip with a good friend, It certainly (i hope) will not be my last trip to Japan and its highly recommended to anybody who has the chance-A trip of a lifetime

Dave

Better days

I popped out to another site not too far from me wthat has ben kind to me in the past with Short Eared Owls, and it has been reported that there have been sightings so thought it was time I gave it a go.

With still airs and great light, risp air, the weather was playing its part.

I wasnt disappointed.

Within two minutes of the first stop, I grabbed these following images. Not as critically sharp as I would quite like as they are large crops so suffer, as well as being handheld.

But it was great to get and see lots of bird activity again

In the next part, I will bring you a species of bird that I am really pleased to see spreading much closer to home in large numbers, as well as tell you about other exciting species that I had the pleasure of watching.

It was good to get back out again.

Martin

Garden and California

I havent been shooting in the garden since before Xmas but i make sure that food is left in the same places at the same time of day every day that i am there, Animals are quite time conscious especially foxes, The opossums have decided to change their time table and instead of coming around 7pm they are now coming after mid night and up to 2.30am which is a right royal pain, I have a chair next to my garden window so i can watch all evening and into the night, The deer are still coming just after dark and there are normally 4-6 but sometimes more, The food (corn) don't last long and within 5 minutes they are gone, Great to see and they come pretty close to the house for a good view, We have had rain here for the last couple of days and although it may sound strange its actually a good time to go into the woods and have a look around for the tell tell signs of activity, Firstly the leaves will be soft and quite after a good soaking and secondly there will be paw/hoof prints in the soft mud telling you exactly whats been around when you haven't,
Yesterday morning after dropping my wife off at work i decided to check and fill the bird feeders, As i walked out i quickly stopped as there was a small woodpecker on the woodpecker branch, I watched for a few minutes and it didn't move so i went back in, I checked it again 5 minutes later and it was still there, All my gear was still packed away so i thought to hell with it and unpacked the gear and checked again-still there, So i crept out with the D7000 and 600 on my tripod, Took a few shots and wished i had my 1.4x with me, I crept forward slowly, The woodpecker was watching me and then took some more images, It was concerned at all and had a look around, I came back in and left it there and 10 minutes later it was still there, It moved down to one of the holes with fat in it and had a quick feed before flying off, Now that's a nice start to the day
First image and a bit small in the frame
I managed to creep forward without spooking the bird
The bird did move slightly down the branch at one point and with a slightly higher view point it completely changed the look of the image
All images are uncropped and as you can see i haven't tried to hide the feeder holes

Only a week before we fly off to California, I mentioned before that i hope to photograph the Elephant Bull Seals that arrive there every winter to breed, The problem is that when the big guys are there you have to go on a tour and the tickets can be bought up to 56 days before the day, I was lucky and have managed to book 4 tours each lasting 2.5 hours, The main reason for the length of tour is the 1+mile walk in each direction, I get the feeling that my shoulders are going to be very sore

Dave

Well at least the moon was nice

Well you dont need me to tell you that as wildlife photographers you need to have a lot of patience and resilience to the elements.

So what do you do to pass the time while you are waiting for the species you have driven out to see, to turn up.

Well on the last day of the holidays, I headed only about 50 minutes away from my house to see if I could get my first Short Eared Owls of the year.

As you will see from the following, they didn't show....again.

So the mind and your eyes turns to other things as you wait, and wait, and wait,.....and wait. And as your body core temperature drops as it is only about 2 deg C, but the wind is biting into to you to make it feel many degrees colder. Minutes seemed to last for ever.

Hunger sets in, so you raid the food stores, and quickly you get more bored, so out comes the flask.

And then another ten minutes go by, and you think I'll have another cuppa, but then you realise at this rate you will run out of drink very soon. So you decide that you will reward yourself, by waiting another twenty minutes before the next one.

You make sure the camera is still set up OK, even though you did it five times in last twenty minutes anyway. The flask calls you tantalisingly, but your will holds

Oh look, there's an aircraft - lets check the AF is working OK.

Light aircraft on ILS practice approach to Gloucester airport, some good few miles away from me at this stage.

More time goes by - that looks like a nice gate, how is that framed? OK that would look great with an Owl flying through the middle wouldn't it?

Now we get all arty and start to take 'enviro' shots of a distant kestrel - doh!! Now you know things are getting bad now

Ooh! Thats a lovely partial moon, so crisp and clear

Arrgh, now thats better - ten minutes later as it's a bit darker. Makes a change from the black ones and full shape.

Meanwhile, you have been on site for over four hours, not seen a single Owl, or anything much else of interest. You are frozen through to the core, run out of food, run out of hot tea. You take the last test shots, and at ISO3200, 1/80s on a 700 lens, and down to f7.1, you finally accept you have run out of options.

Its a great life isn't it. But we will be back for more won't we?

Martin

Sigma 180mm F2.8 O.S Macro

I received a mail from Sigma informing me that they have released a new macro lens in the 180mm F2.8 O.S, I had the old version-The 180mm F3.5 which was a great lens and i only changed it to the Sigma 150mm Macro as it would not work with the new D7000, For some reason 180mm Macro lens seem to be F3.5 but Sigma have made the new version a touch faster, Sigma make some outstanding macro lenses and i am sure that this one will join the list-plus it has optical stabilization which can only be a good thing for hand holding, I cant see any prices or availability yet so watch this space


Dave

Infront and Behind the camera

Its not often that i am infront of the camera but when i was at the Crystal River one of my friends stayed on the boat one day and used her Nikon D700 to get some shots from above the water, I thought that this would give you some idea of what it looks like above and below at the same time
After swimming in open water for about 1.5 hours we returned to the boat and there were 2 manatees chewing on the anchor rope which is very common and a way for them to clean their gums etc, I decided to get some last shots

From above


From below
Yes thats my hand holding onto the boast to try and stabilise myself, I could crop it out but left it in for the blog

From Above

From Below

Not a great image by any accounts but what do expect when you are being bumped by something 5 times your size and they are just inches from the camera, You actually see my friend taking the image on the boat

A few images of me by my friend Judy:
Getting up close and personal


1.5 hours in the water and its job done and time to get out and grab a coffee, You can clearly see the EWA marine bag with the D3s in it

It nay be warm outside but once you have been in the water it feels very cold so wrap up quick in warm clothes and a funky hat and get some coffee and donuts
I was very glad to have somebody to get some shots of me doing what i enjoy the most, I have said before that swimming with the manatees is like nothing else in wildlife photography, Interaction between them is always an honor and an awesome experience, I just need to find a way of getting down their in March for some clear water and lack of people

All images out of the water copyright Judy Campbell

Dave

Fave images of last year - Final Part

October saw me get an early morning start in Bradgate Park in Leicestershire for the annual deer rut, where I was treated to some great sights and sounds

More locally to me, the Fallow Deer, while less impressive as a mighty beast still have great charm, and when the light is right makes for a pleasing image.

But with a relatively quiet Autumn and early winter period, images were few and far between. However, one other trip in late October was fruitful and that was to Westonbirt Arboretum, on a day when all the conditions came right for me, for once. So to wrap up this quick look back of my favourite images of last year for a variety of reasons, here are the last batch.

Late December saw another trip across to the Forest of Dean, but you saw those images a week or so ago, so no repeats at this time.

Right so that was 2011, and so on to 2012, and what will it bring?

Keep watching and see what Dave and I find crossing the paths of our lenses, long, wide and close up.

Cheers

Martin

Savannah,Georgia

On the way back from Florida went did a 2 day layover in Savannah Georgia, It break the journey in half and is right next to the i95, We have been there a couple of times before and if you are in the area its well worth a day or 2, Its very different from the main US cities in that it has an old European feel to it, Cobbled streets and old Euro architecture around the water front make for a pleasant change, In the spring the who place is a blaze of colour with rhododendrons, Add lots of huge trees covered in Spanish moss and it becomes a very picturesque place, Its not far from the sea and Hilton Head Island is only a 30 min drive and the nature reserve next to the bridge to the island is normally worth a trip, In the spring its full of birds, We went out to eat down by the waterfront one evening and i took the D3s along with the 24-70 and SB900, I did not want to take a tripod with me but did decide to get some long exposures of around 1.5 secs so used the flash to 'grab' the subject and a fence,post or rock for support which seemed to work well.
Savannah has a very cosmopolitan feel to the place, Lots of arty type people-defiantly worth the trip




Dave