Otterly Disappointed

A few years ago, the local town lakes proved a hot bed of mustelid activity with a resident Otter bitch utilising the three main lakes in the town and their adjoining river network to raise her family. This proved brilliant for a budding wildlife photographer like myself, who had only ever had a distant glimpse of wild Otters in the Highlands. It gave me an opportunity to get some photographs and watch their behaviour all usually on my lunch break from work.

So, after a couple of weeks of rumours that a resident Mother was back and with three small pups in tow, someone managed to get some photographs, it was confirmed and I was quite excited, in the intervening four years I can’t complain I have had some awesome Otter encounters up on Mull. But it’s always nice when you can drive five minutes down the road to see them. The only worry I had initially is one I still share today. Social media is so prominent nowadays and a lot of newer visitors to the lake (I can’t really talk, they probably visit a lot more often than I do) are very quick to share all shots and sighting on social media groups, both closed and to a wider audience in the town. Last time it wasn’t uncommon to find dozens of spectators perched on the edge of the water watching these normally elusive mammals. With early onset of grumpy old bastard, I find any one that doesn’t appreciate good field craft and basic wildlife watching etiquette unbearable and would rather miss out myself that witness such annoying behaviour, hopefully the expected throng of foot traffic bound for the lakes are respectful and understand it’s a mother with three young cubs.

Did I mention I don’t really like people? Probably a lot in my posts, with that in mind my own visits to the lake would try and coincide with the usual weekend lay in. I had a brief walk one Saturday afternoon, not expecting to see much but armed with the camera just in case. A few Cormorants perched wings hanging wide, standing sentinels from the big tree overlooking both lakes. The odd one dropped down to fish close to the fishing pontoons. I soon realised the Cormorant is a species I don’t really have any good shots of. So, body down flat among the dried Goose and Duck shit I found myself at water level clicking away as one bird surfaced in front of me. I did have a moment of fright and as the resident territorial male Swan didn’t like the look of one of last year’s Cygnets and headed flapping quite speedily my way to see it off. Only when you are at head level and about 3 feet away can you appreciate just how big and angry a Swan can be. Luckily enough I managed to get my arse up off the deck and camera to safety before they came splashing past.

Celebrating he drifted off into the shade for a big, dominant wing stretch. Even though on the far side of the lake, I couldn’t get the full reflection in with the 600mm. 

That afternoon visit started a trend though and at the time of writing this two and a bit months later, seven visits to the lakes and still no Otter sightings. I’ve been in the early morning for first light, mid-morning, mid-afternoon and even towards dusk. I’ve seen dozens of photos posted online and all I have to show for it are a few more shots of Swans and some fishing Cormorants in some nice early morning light, minus the fish!

I am off to the Outer Hebrides in 6 days or so where I’m hoping Otters are much easier to come by!

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'Owls For Lunch'

For weeks I had resisted the temptation to jump in the car and speed down to Southampton for some Owl action, A couple of Short-eared Owls had taken up winter residence in a small field on the edge of a residential street which bordered on to an industrial park, prime real estate it would seem for Hampshire’s wintering Shorties, surrounded on 2 sides by footpaths, I had been seeing plenty of good shots posted online. Although I am always keen to get a few more SEO photographs the main reason I didn’t want to zip down the M3 was the light, I’ve taken plenty in crap light, and longed for some sunshine on these charismatic hunters. And mainly because Sundays my only free time during the winter for the past couple of months had been a mixture of cold, grey & wet days. I say wet, the weather had ranged from mildly damp to torrentially moist every time I considered getting the camera out.





It was 2 to go weekends until Christmas, and whilst most people were out doing there festive shopping, my weekends job entailed weeding the flower bed in the front garden. By 10.30am I was all done, plastered in mud and with plenty of sweat beads running down my forehead (sorry not a pretty picture) but the sun was out. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen it on a Sunday. I toyed with what I could do, the distance and time it would take me to get there and what I might see when I did get there, and then I thought Owls. They were showing yesterday so why not today, the skies were clear and there was barely any cloud. I raced indoors and grabbed my gear, 25 mins later I was pulling into a quiet side street on the outskirts of Southampton, 25 minutes is no exaggeration either, I literally flew down the A34 and M3. The sky, much to my annoyance got grayer and grayer the closer I got to the coast, to the point that I was almost considering turning around and going home as a few spots of rain hit the windscreen.

You always know you’re in the right place when you see the first guy in camo loitering around a hole in a hedge, I’m sure to many passer-by’s, this is a pretty strange sight, and it does baffle me also, you’re in the middle of a housing estate not the jungle what’s the need for Camo. After a brief chat he was quick to inform me the birds had been out earlier on this particular morning and there had been no sign of them since about half 9. It was now approaching 11.15am. I didn’t hurry to setup my gear but made sure I found myself a good vantage point along the roadside edge of this 10 acre or so area of wasteland that was probably a thriving meadow once upon a time.







Without any owls showing for the next half hour I honed my watching skills by amusing myself at the looks received from local residents and passers-by. Several stopping to make conversation and share their expert birding knowledge on me. I think one woman was pretty convinced the Short-eared Owls had nested their this year, raising about a dozen chicks, I’m not normally so directly skeptical to the uninitiated. But she came across as a pretentious know it all, so I felt I had to put her straight.







It had gone midday and I was just giving heading home some thought when a couple of Magpies glided over tempting up an owl from a midst the grass. Now I was alert, finger poised resting on the shutter willing the bird to come a little closer. The light was poor, but I’d worked with worse, the one great thing about Short-eared Owls is they come ridiculously close if you have enough patience and keep still. It took a while but eventually this gorgeous bird was hunting just 5 or 6 meters away. Coming so close at times to my long lens that I couldn’t fit it all in frame.





A second Owl much darker in colour joined it minutes later and they both zoomed across the tops of the grassland, dropping down to hunt regularly. It is an amazing thing to see such awesome wildlife in such an unlikely place, an area nothing better than wasteland bordered by train tracks, industrial estate, the Motorway and a residential street. With people walking around it at all times of day and dog walkers letting their mutts roam wild across it. And even though the light was rubbish and the weather depressing it was totally worth the drive!

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My Month With Hares - August 2014

If you were a regular visitor to my blog, or if you swing by my Facebook page often you would probably have gathered that the Brown Hare is probably my favorite animal to photograph. So with the light evenings drawing rapidly towards a Autumn and Winter of darkness I thought I would try and spend as much time as I could during August with my local Brown Hare population.

Locating the Hares at the start of the month proved a little tricky, Harvest hadn't hit full swing and a lot of the crops were still standing. I got lucky on a couple of times with sightings on the footpaths, but with plenty of cover for them to disappear into, getting closer was unsuccessful.

As the month moved on fewer and fewer standing crop fields remained. Opening up a glut of new locations to try and bag myself some pictures. A small rise in one of the fields left a clear skyline facing into the setting sun. Several attempts (5 in fact) and I finally got the weather and the Hares in the right place. A clear evening subsided to a gorgeous bright orange sunset. The silhouette of Mr or Mrs Hare poised perfectly in front of it.

Extremely satisfied with my silhouette shots I decided to change position hoping to capture the setting sun on the Hares rather than shooting into it. Again several unsuccessful evenings followed but eventually I had an extremely close encounter with a Hare feeding among the wheat stubble. So close in fact at times my lens couldn't focus.

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Little Grebes - Spring/Summer 2014

I am quite a fan of photographing wildlife on my own patch, I am not sure whether it’s the fact that I know no one else is going to interrupt me when I am out, or the fact that it’s only me that’s going to see birds or mammals in that particular place. I guess that makes me quite selfish, but without the lack of foot traffic and all round quietness of the stretch of River Test that runs through the village I doubt I would stand any chance of photographing the resident Little Grebes.

A naturally shy bird, more often than not they dive underwater at the first sign of any approach, surfacing in the shady camouflaged safety of the river bank edge and its reed fringe. The river isn’t very wide in this particular spot so when the birds are mid stream they are only 20-25ft away from the bank which does allow the opportunity for some frame filling photographs. I’ve found by positioning myself led prone on the edge of the bank, stationed downstream from the resident pair, sooner or later they will swim on down, whether to fish or to defend their territory.

This summer was a strange one; I spent a few hours watching the birds around the nest, careful not to disturb them in the hope of a seeing a stripy plumaged chick, alas I had no luck. Whether the rumour of several Mink sightings on this stretch of water had caused enough disturbances to prevent a hatch I cannot be sure, as I never actually saw the Mink myself. The one thing I did notice every time I watched them was that the pair would swap places regularly on the nest, the bird sitting taking time to cover the eggs over and departing for a few minutes before the other bird would take over. Did this have a consequence for the un-hatched young? A conundrum that baffled me on each visit.

As you can see in a prone position with very slow movements the birds allow some great views, here is to hoping for a big brood of young Dabchicks in 2015.

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A Season For Barn Owls

With my last post in April time I have some catching up to do, so here is a flashback to mid spring and early June of this year. After the failures last year nationwide, 2014 seems to have been a very successful year for breeding Barn Owls and none more so than locally throughout the Test Valley.

I shall set the scene for you if you haven’t read one of my rambling blog posts before. I am lucky enough to live in a tiny hamlet which is sandwiched between the ever serene and beautiful chalk stream of the River Test and the vibrant ancient woodland of the nearby Harewood Forest. With sprawling farmland and quiet expanses of water meadow throughout the river valley, the area offers a bountiful habitat for any vole feeding predator. Kestrels are regular breeders and this year was no exception, Tawny Owls are also present in good numbers but this habitat also suites the silent winged ghost the Barn Owl.

2014 saw 2 Barn Owl pairs nesting nearby, one using an artificial nest box the other a wooden barn. The nests were no more than 700 metres apart from one another, an occurrence which seemed a bit alien to me, with both nests so close I was sure that both pairs of owl’s territories would easily encroach upon one another, with each Owls hunting range covering a far bigger area that 700 metres. Would this cause issues? Would there be enough food for both pairs to raise a successful brood? Gnawing at my mind a little I had to turn to the only trusted source we seem to rely on in the world these days ‘Google’.... and although each website had a slightly different take on how big an Owls home range would be. Each had the same answer for me; ‘Barn Owls are not particularly territorial and often live in overlapping home ranges’ something my bird books at home also seemed to back up a pretty clear answer to my first question.

My thoughts on prey shortages proved to be nothing more than a forgotten worry, as each pair raised a successful brood. The pair in the artificial nest box fledging 4 healthy looking chicks. I was lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time watching these noisy owlets from a neighbour’s garden two or three times a week for the duration of June. At the start of the month the adult birds would drop in with a fresh kill causing a frenzy of hissing and scrabbling from inside the box, each time a white fluffy head would appear briefly in the opening. By the end of the month four juvenile birds had fledged, dropping back down every now and then on to the nest box from the leafy branches above to be fed. Gangly, awkward and lacking the elegant aerial grace of their parents who were still tirelessly feeding them.

As a schedule one species I made sure I was at a safe distance, careful not to disturb or distress the adult birds or the newly emerged youngsters. Although sightings could be guaranteed each night, I found it quite hard to get some photographs I was happy with. Light being the main factor as the setting sun would drop down right behind the nest box casting all of the meadow into shadow. A lot of my photographs were taken in near dark at high ISO’s something I hope to remedy next year by some better planning. But nothing can take away the pure pleasure of watching these beautiful birds raise a family.

As I came home late last night a stunning white outline passed through my headlights beam landing on the railed fence to the side of the road, my first Barn Owl sighting in more than a month. Maybe one of this year’s young or could it be one of the local resident adults. No way of ever knowing but -whichever it was it brought a smile to my face!

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A Selection Of Cracking Tits

The feeding station throughout the winter has been pretty hectic, with lots of different species visiting. Here are a selection of photographs from the Tit family (Paridae). Visitors regularly include Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Marsh Tit & Long tailed Tit. I am not too sure about adding Willow Tit to that list but one can hope.

Coal Tit

Blue Tit

Long tailed Tit

Great Tit

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